


Team R/W/B/Y

by tkss



Category: RWBY
Genre: AU: White Fang!Blake, AU: bandit!Yang, Gen, Multi, also feat. the rest of the RWBY cast, bumbleby tag removed for clarity, catmeleon if you squint, features past!Tauradonna, is this freezerburn? anyone's guess, rated teen for light swearing, yang/cinder if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 73,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkss/pseuds/tkss
Summary: Crimson Silver was raised in Evernight, taken in by Salem after being found the night her parents were killed missing one of her silver eyes. Weiss Schnee failed in her trial against the Knight and instead applies to join the Atlesian military. Blake Belladonna goes undercover as the human Dusk Nightshade to infiltrate Haven Academy and spy for the White Fang. Yang Branwen is the bandit princess of her mother's tribe and possesses the power of the Spring Maiden. Team WYCD arrives at Haven Academy, each member with ulterior motives -- but doubts and hopes alike work to change the course of their future and the future of Remnant.Or: Ruby is a servant of Salem. Weiss followed in her sister's footsteps. Blake never left the White Fang. Yang was raised by Raven as the Spring Maiden. None of Team RWBY ever made it to Beacon, yet Team RWBY still formed...  under different circumstances.
Comments: 104
Kudos: 183





	1. Servants of Salem

Evernight was cold.

Crimson did not sorely miss sunlight; she saw enough of it on missions for the Queen that her skin was not too pale and eyesight not too poor. Moving through shadows with stealth was a task best left to Cinder, where Crimson’s bright red cape would make her an easy target. Of all of the Queen’s servants, Crimson spent the most time out in the open, feeling the dry desert warmth of Vacuo or the oppressively humid heat of Vale even under her hood. Yes, she largely preferred Evernight’s midnight chill to the sun’s piercing rays. But most of all, the sun showed the passage of time. Time was one thing Crimson never spared.

Despite all this, she still wrapped her red cloak tighter around herself as the wind picked up. She sat exposed on a high ledge outside the castle, overlooking the causeway. The wind was not strong enough to blow her off her perch, but it still bit at her fingers and ears. She pulled her hood up to protect her face. It never stormed in Evernight -- she assumed her master’s magic had some role to play in that -- but the wind always lingered. Today, it bit at her more fiercely than usual. She shivered.

The wind suddenly roared and tore her cape out of her grasp, a huge gust raining down from above. She was thrust forward and thrown off the tower by the blast. She twisted midair, falling back and squinting at the sky above her. There were bright, unnatural lights above her, flashing and disorienting. Crimson squeezed her sole silver eye shut and blinked rapidly as she continued her descent. The lights had moved on, the wind now somewhere beyond her head and the roaring growing quieter. She shook her head, now conscious of the air zipping past her face. Undistracted by the ship that had just passed overhead, she was suddenly aware of her freefall. She turned over midair. She watched the ground speed towards her, but did not panic: in a burst of rose petals, she shot out parallel to the lower level of the castle. Suspended by her Semblance, she spent a moment watching the purple stone zoom past, mere feet away from her face. She tucked her chin, released her Semblance, and rolled into a somersault. She let her feet fall to the ground before her and stood up in one swift motion. The breeze of her landing blew softly against her face, then faded as she rocked to a halt.

The ship whose turbines had caused her sudden displacement had come to rest on the pier jutting out of the front of the castle. The bullhead’s lights dimmed as its pilot parked it precariously on the edge of the platform. Crimson dusted herself off, adjusting the clothes that had been knocked akilter. She again raised her red hood as she began walking down the causeway. As she approached the ship, the hull door slowly opened, revealing just who Crimson was expecting to see.

“You nearly killed me,” Crimson greeted. “I could have fallen to my death.”

“But you didn’t,” Cinder responded, walking down the ramp. Her glass heels clicked daintily against the metal surface. “And how could I have known you were sitting on lookout?” she teased.

“I was waiting for you,” Crimson said. “Why were you approaching from the South? You were coming from Vale, I thought.”

“I got a bit turned around,” she replied. She gestured to a long, angry rip in her red dress. Other than that, she was perfectly unscathed. “I had to take evasive action over the sea. Don’t worry, I lost them.”

“I don’t think I’m the one who should be worried,” Crimson replied. She turned as they began to walk side by side up the causeway. “Salem said she wanted to see both of us as soon as you got back.”

Cinder frowned. “Did she.”

Crimson shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s about either. It seems important, though.”

Cinder’s scowl deepened.

“Probably not Maiden stuff,” Crimson offered. “She’s not  _ that  _ anxious. I should know, I’ve been hanging around her alone for hours and I’ve still got one eye.” She pointed comically to the eyepatch covering the left side of her face and grinned.

Cinder said nothing.

“It’s about the Spring Maiden,” Salem said.

Cinder glared at Crimson. She hid inside her hood.

They sat around the conference table, Crimson to Salem’s right and Cinder on her far left side. The Seer orbited menacingly around them. It glided past Cinder, whispering indistinctly. She suppressed a shiver. She focused her attention on the head of the table.

“What about her?” Cinder asked. “Have we discovered her identity?”

“Possibly,” Salem replied. 

Cinder gasped. Salem held up a hand to silence her. “But it’s only a possibility. However, it is information from a reputable source.”

Cinder repressed her excitement, bowing her head. Crimson peeked out from her hood. “From who?”

_ It’s “whom,”  _ Cinder thought idly.

Salem lowered her hand. “According to Leonardo. He suspects a girl who passed the entrance exams to Haven Academy two days ago and matches the description of a member of the Branwen tribe.”

Cinder looked up. She and Crimson glanced at each other with suspicion.  _ Impossible,  _ her mind muttered.

“I thought we ruled them out as possible candidates for the Spring Maiden?” Crimson clarified.

Cinder leaned forward and put a hand on the table. “I personally investigated that matter. No strange weather patterns, no unusual raids. I even interrogated one of their puny runts!”

“And somehow you learned nothing!” Salem barked.

Cinder recoiled. Salem’s eyes glowed an eerie red. Crimson looked down.

“You were mistaken, my dear Cinder,” Salem spoke softly. Cinder felt her heart clench. 

The Seer came to rest at Salem’s left. Crimson peered at it curiously. Cinder threatened her with her eyes. Crimson didn’t notice her warning, suddenly fascinated by the clouded images in the Seer’s orb.

Salem ignored Crimson’s interest, her keen eyes instead fixed on Cinder. They commanded that her body tremble, that the hairs on her neck raise. Cinder dared not portray any microexpression of cowardice, but internally, she wilted under Salem’s stern gaze.

“This is what Leonardo saw,” Salem continued, gaze burning, “that led him to believe she was the Spring Maiden.”

She lifted a veiny hand and nudged the Seer forward. It lifted onto the table, floating serenely towards Cinder. Cinder leaned back on instinct. It stopped in the middle of the table and stilled. For a moment, it was quiet.

Then, the smoky film inside the orb crackled to life, like lightning in a bottle. The globe filled with flashes of light, sparkling at different colors and intensities until the shapes became so small that they looked like stars. Out of these hundreds of different colors of stars, an image formed in the orb, three-dimensional and lifelike.

Crimson sighed in awe, mesmerized. Cinder leaned further back in her chair.

The orb showed them a girl standing in a clearing in the woods. Her long hair was a shade of yellow that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. She wore grey and tan and red, the signature colors, Cinder recognized, of the Branwen tribe. Cinder could not see her face, as she was facing away from the viewer and towards three growling Ursa minors. One of them emitted a stream of smoke from one of its legs as it circled to her right, as if she had already slashed it. Cinder leaned closer, searching for her weapons: on her arms were gunmetal grey gauntlets, and at her hip hung a slender silver sword. The blade looked untouched -- as shiny as a wet mirror. If something cut the Ursa, it surely was not the sword.

Suddenly, the injured Ursa lunged, the mass of black surging towards her. The yellow-haired girl jumped, gracefully flipping backwards out of its range. She pulled her arm back behind her and lunged, driving a punch forward. Cinder caught a glimpse of silver streak through the air before the blow landed firmly on the Ursa’s belly. She knocked it back and it staggered, roaring in pain. Seconds later, the roaring ceased, and the Ursa disintegrated into smoke. 

When the girl returned to a neutral stance, Cinder realized what had slashed it. On her gauntlets were folding blades, like daggers on hinges, that she could deploy to puncture in close-range combat. She definitely looked like the kind of brawler that liked things up-close. If that was the case, Cinder would have guessed that she hadn’t used her sword, which would give her a wider reach, simply to show off. 

The other two Ursai chose this moment to come barreling towards her. They rushed her from opposite sides of the clearing, as if with the intent to crush her between them. She easily had enough time to jump out of the way, but instead, Cinder watched as she dropped to the ground, crouching as if taking shelter from a spray of bullets.

And then,  _ CRACK-OOM! _

The sound was so loud, Cinder’s knee jerked and smashed into the table. Crimson let out a small yelp at the noise.

Two thunderbolts had appeared from the sky and smote the Ursai in one fell swoop. The two Grimm were reduced to ash in the blink of an eye. Salem frowned.

The dust settled as the yellow-haired girl slowly rose from the ground. She stood proud, radiating an energy of dominance that even Cinder could see as intimidating. She stared at the girl’s back with renewed interest. She was completely unscathed and unbothered by this act of the Gods, simply dusting herself off and flipping a shimmering golden lock freely over her shoulder. Such power, Cinder marveled.  _ Such strength, such control... _

_ I must have it _ , Cinder decided in her heart.

The image in the Seer suddenly dissolved. Cinder blinked, shaken out of her intense focus. The smoke returned to formlessness, and the orb went dark.

The room was quiet. Cinder’s heart hammered in her ears.

“As you can see,” Salem said, “this may be the Spring Maiden.”

Cinder shook herself again. Her muscles relaxed, but her thoughts continued to race. 

“May?” Crimson parroted. “ _ That’s  _ still a ‘maybe?’”

“Leonardo did not see her eyes when she conjured the lightning,” Salem explained. “It may be her Semblance. He saw nothing during her fight that contradicts that. If her eyes ignited, it would be certain.”

“But that power…”

Salem and Crimson’s eyes fell onto Cinder. It had just barely escaped her lips, but it now sat in the open. She cleared her throat.

“That power was remarkable,” Cinder said. “How could I have missed it when I was searching for her?”

Salem rose from her seat, not fast enough to warrant fear, but purposefully enough to make Cinder straighten her spine.

“That no longer concerns me,” Salem said. “What matters is that you failed.”

Crimson gasped quietly.

Cinder’s fingers curled into knots. Her palms were sweating, she realized. 

Salem took a step to her left. Cinder’s gaze was frozen in place, carving a hole in the table.

“The power of the Spring Maiden cannot have come to her recently,” Salem said, “for you would have seen the damage in your investigation.”

Salem stepped closer and closer towards Cinder. Each footfall seemed to take a lifetime. Crimson watched anxiously, one silver eye darting between them. Cinder remained focused on the table.

“If you had not been outsmarted by that rabble of rogues,  _ we _ would have that power now,” Salem accused, stalking closer. “Your chance to kill her in the woods has been passed up; if she is admitted to Haven Academy, which she may go to great lengths to ensure, she will be under the protection of Ozpin and his puppets. If they find out about her power, she will be as good as lost.”

Salem now hovered at Cinder’s side. Cinder had sunken so low in her chair that Salem now towered over her, her silhouette a shadowy talon poised to strike.

One cold hand snaked under Cinder’s chin. Cinder shivered as her clawed fingertips made contact with her skin. Gently, yet threatening enough strength to snap her jaw clean off, she lifted her chin so that Cinder’s gaze was torn off the table and caught by Salem’s.

Her lips were slightly upturned, yet her red eyes betrayed no softness. They narrowed imploringly.

Cinder swallowed, then took in a deep breath.

“What would you have me do?” Cinder whispered.

Salem’s smile sweetened. Her gaze did not.

Her hand retreated from under Cinder’s chin and she turned away. All the tension in Cinder’s body relaxed in relief. She keeled over, taking in shaky gulps of air -- she had forgotten to breathe. Crimson watched in concern.

“If you would recall, the plan originally was for you to enroll at Haven for the Vytal Festival to orchestrate the fall of Beacon Academy,” Salem said. “At the start of the second semester, yes?” She paused, looking over her shoulder at Cinder. Her gaze pierced into her.

“Yes,” Cinder rasped.

Salem returned to the head of the table. Crimson shuffled in her seat.

“This now takes priority,” Salem ordered. “The Fall Maiden can wait for the fall semester. It is now springtime. Let us not let it go to waste.”

Cinder’s eyes flashed to Crimson. Crimson nodded.

“What are our orders?” Crimson asked.

“You will enroll at Haven for the full year. Cinder, you will form a team with Emerald, Mercury, and Neo as planned. My plan for the Vytal Festival still stands.”

Cinder nodded. She had accepted this role long ago, when she had first been sent to claim the Fall Maiden’s powers. While two semesters would be harder to survive undiscovered than one, covert operations were her specialty. She would be willing to bear another semester if she could fill the gnawing emptiness of the Fall Maiden’s incomplete power. She was willing to bear anything for that.

“You, Crimson,” Salem added, turning to her, “will be responsible for taking the power of the Spring Maiden.”

Crimson’s eye widened. Cinder clutched the table.

“ _ What? _ ” she snapped.

Salem ignored her. Cinder bristled.

“But,” Cinder tried, grip tightening. She gasped in indignation. “You promised me…!”

“I promised you one thing,” Salem hissed. “ _ Power.  _ Yes. I remember. In exchange for your loyalty.”

Cinder swallowed another objection as Salem’s eyes fixed on her.

“And, I cannot deny that you have been loyal,” Salem continued, tone unkindly. “But.”

She gestured to Crimson, who retreated into her cape. “Perhaps Crimson will be able to succeed in this task when you have failed. She will earn the power of the Spring Maiden, as you will earn the power of the Fall Maiden when the destruction of Beacon is complete.”

Cinder turned to Crimson, speechless. The girl continued to hide in her cloak. She stared at this girl, who was years younger than her, so young that she was hiding in her ridiculous red cape like the frightened child she was; Crimson, who had not failed her queen because her queen barely entrusted her with anything more important than an assassination; Crimson, who had been at Salem’s side for longer than Cinder even knew -- impossibly long for her young appearance -- and yet inexplicably played a less important role in their plans than the brainless fanatics in the White Fang.

Cinder stared at Crimson, in hatred.

“What will I do?” Crimson asked, ignorant of Cinder’s burning gaze.

“You will also enroll at Haven,” Salem said. “You will get on the same team as the suspected Maiden, and when you think you have gotten the right chance, you will kill her and take the power.”

Cinder pondered the vicious scheme. Much more befitting to someone with more tact and experience, she decided. Someone like herself, she thought bitterly.

Crimson looked down as she processed the information. 

“It’s an assassination job, then,” she said, after a pause. “Got it.”

Salem smiled approvingly, and something twisted in Cinder’s gut. Her jaw clenched.

“Cinder and her team will be there to assist you, if needed.”

Cinder’s thoughts echoed her words.  _ To ASSIST you.  _ Each reverberation fueled her growing frustration.  _ IF needed. IF.  _ Her jaw clenched tighter.

“Of course, if she is not the Spring Maiden, you can drop out with Leonardo’s assistance,” Salem said with a wave of her hand. “But if she is…”

Cinder watched as Salem gave Crimson the same smile she gave Cinder. Perhaps Cinder’s spitefulness was clouding her perception of reality, or perhaps Salem’s smile to Crimson held more genuine affection.

“...I trust that you will not disappoint me.”

Crimson smiled. It matched. She nodded.

“It will be done.”


	2. The Spring Maiden

The forests of Anima in springtime were always delightfully chilly.

As Yang trudged through the woods, she was grateful for the little breezes that would occasionally run across her face. They delicately played with her hair, blowing her bangs off her sweaty brow and sneaking under her jacket collar to tickle her neck. The vernal scent on the wind of flowering trees and fresh grass distracted her from the growing stench of the deer carcass slung over her shoulder. She hoisted it forward, a burning sensation in her arm as it strained against the weight after so many hours of hauling the kill back to camp. Only a hundred or so more heavy footsteps to the encampment, and she could put this thing down and open her arms to the breeze. For now, she ignored the straining in her shoulder and shrugged the deer into a more comfortable position. The smell worsened.

Yang rolled her red eyes, fake retching at the scent. She heard a giggle next to her. She craned her neck to look to her right, past the deer on her shoulder.

Kestrel watched her carefully, blue eyes glittering with mirth.

“What are you laughing at,” Yang growled. “You think carrying this is easy?”

“Oh, no,” Kestrel mused, bringing her free hand to cover her mouth in amusement. Her other hand remained fastened to the long stick over her right shoulder. The rabbit carcasses tied to it swung limply with each step she took. “I think you can carry it just fine.” 

“What’s so funny, then,” Yang grumbled, red eyes narrowing.

“I’m just thinking about how angry Raven’s gonna be,” Kestrel said, biting back more giggles, “when her daughter comes home smelling like dead deer!”

“Hey!” Yang chided her friend as she continued to giggle. “I oughta hit you for that.”

“But you can’t, ‘cause you’re carrying a dead deer,” Kestrel teased.

“Fine,” Yang said, “I’ll wack you with it.”

“Then I’ll hit you with my dead rabbits,” Kestrel replied, swinging the stick carelessly.

“Careful, they’re not all tied that tightly,” Yang said.

“They’re projectiles,” Kestrel responded curtly. She switched the stick over to her left shoulder. Her tattooed upper arm flexed as it adjusted to the sudden weight.

“Why aren’t you concerned about yourself?” Yang asked. “You’ll be smelling like dead rabbits.”

“I’m not the personification of springtime,” Kestrel said. “Nobody expects  _ me  _ to smell like flowers and sunshine.”

“Hey, shut up!” Yang laughed. “That is  _ not  _ what being the Spring Maiden means.”

“You sure?” Kestrel said. “Cause I’m pretty sure you’re about to get lectured about it for an hour.”

Kestrel had stopped, and was now looking up at the wooden gates of the encampment. Her face had soured.

Yang came to rest next to her, donning the same look. She had liked the distraction of Kestrel’s poking-fun, but now their hunt was over. Now, Yang was at the mercy of her mother’s unforgiving nature.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Kestrel offered. “You take the game to the cooking tent. I’ll plead your case.”

Yang continued staring up at the wall. The sun was low in the sky, staining the clouds red. The wind had died.

“Thanks, but no need,” Yang assured. “I can talk to her now.”

Kestrel gave her a quizzical look. “You sure? I’m not sure she wants to see you right away.”

Yang sighed, lifting her free hand to rub her forehead. “No, I got it.”

Kestrel’s worried look lingered, but she shrugged it off. “Whatever. Your funeral.” She moved to knock on the gate. “At least come put that poor deer down first,” she added, pounding the password rhythm on the towering doors.

Yang followed her path as she heard the gate bars lift on the other side. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

The doors swung open, and Yang was greeted with the familiar sight of home.

All the tents that were pitched when she left in the morning remained standing, a few of their tarps swinging lightly as people wandered freely from room to room. The setting sun cast long shadows across the camp that crept up the pillars of the outer wall. As it did on all the other final nights of the month, the bonfire at the center of the camp roared ferociously as armfuls of timber were dumped into the blaze. A few members of the tribe had already gathered around the fire, and the chatter of merriment echoed throughout the camp. 

“Yang!” she heard someone call. Yang turned in the direction of the noise to see Stoat approaching her, his arms up in greeting. “Let me come take that for you!” He hobbled lopsidedly towards her, favoring his good leg as he rushed to help her.

“Nice to see you too, Dad,” Kestrel commented. Yang set down the deer, the muscles in her arm blessing the world for their good fortune. Stoat ruffled Kestrel’s short brown hair with a gnarled hand.

“Don’t you worry about it, Kessie, I’ll get you too,” he said. “Yellow-eye! Cotton! Come help with this!” He called over his shoulder, and as if he had summoned them from the ground, two more tribesmen instantly appeared behind him, one going for Yang’s deer and one for Kestrel’s rabbits.

“Thanks, Stoat,” Yang said. The man smiled at her and bowed his head.

“Not at all, Yang,” he dismissed. “I better not hold you up -- Raven told me she wanted to see you soon as you came back.”

Yang’s bright mood flickered at that. She looked over at Kestrel nervously. “Now?”

“Yes,” Stoat said cheerily. “Now, you best get going so you don’t miss the feast!”

Yang looked helplessly from Kestrel to her father. Kestrel gave her a pitying look.

She sighed, looking ahead. Through the rising flames of the bonfire, she could see the outline of Raven’s tent against the trees. The heat from the fire gave the illusion that the tent’s shape was warping, like it was dragging itself steadily closer to her the longer she watched.

She blinked and shook her head. The tent was still.

With totally unearned confidence, Yang flipped her hair over her shoulder and smoothed her bangs. She tugged her jacket down and shot Kestrel a pained smile.

“I probably  _ do _ smell like dead deer.”

Kestrel chuckled. “Hopefully she won’t mind.”

The bandit queen was sharpening her sword when Yang parted the curtain to her tent. Raven’s greying hair was pulled back with her usual copper-colored bandana securing it in place. The tips of her feathery locks trembled slightly with each pull of her blade across the whetstone. After every drag, she let the blade ring ominously for a few moments, before pressing it back down onto the stone, unsatisfied. 

Her back was facing the tent opening, yet when Yang parted the curtain, she immediately spat, “You’re later than I thought you’d be.”

Yang rolled her eyes. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I had to lug back an entire buck. Kestrel got to carry the rabbits.”

“You went hunting to avoid me in the first place.” 

Yang clenched her fist in indignation for a moment, but she said nothing. Raven spoke no lies. She bit back a snide comment and untensed.

“What did you want to tell me?”

Raven’s stilled, her sword grinding to a halt. She gently balanced the blade on her fingertips, feeling the smoothness of the edge.

“Your recklessness may have caused us more troubles than you think,” Raven said.

“You don’t think I know that?” Yang muttered. Raven’s head turned.

“I wasn’t done,” Raven hissed.

“Yeah, well, neither am I,” Yang continued. She stepped further into the tent. “I used my powers  _ once.  _ I made it look like my Semblance, which I didn’t use at all, by the way, so, y’know… points for self-restraint and all that. And that means that I passed the exam, so I’ll get into the Academy -- I thought that’s what you wanted from me!”

Suddenly there was a red blade underneath Yang’s chin, the tip barely grazing the warm flesh of her throat. She gasped and stumbled backwards. She caught herself on her toes, spine drawn tight as she balanced herself between the blade and the curtain. 

Raven glared at her from the other end of her sword, eyes narrowed.

“Once is all it takes for our enemies to know who you are,” Raven said. She tilted the blade microscopically upward so that it rested underneath Yang’s chin. “Don’t forget.”

Yang suppressed a minuscule tremor in her hands as she slowly reached up and rested her fingers on the flat of Raven’s blade. Her red eyes met their reflection in her mother's, and with a tense nod, she pushed the sword slowly out from under chin. Raven let it drop to her side. Yang’s muscles relaxed. She let out an aching breath.

“I’ve received news today that I think it would do you well to hear,” Raven began. She turned around and grabbed a rag from her worktable, running it down her blade smoothly. “The scouts found something down the Matsu river that does not bode well for you or our tribe.”

She returned the sword to its sheath, gently guiding it into its other half with the hands of an expert. Yang thought to her own sword, sitting neglected in her tent, and couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt.

Raven turned around and leaned against her worktable. She crossed her arms. “You recall Shay’s disappearance from the tribe, don’t you?” she asked.

Yang’s teeth ground together. “His  _ forsaking _ , more like,” Yang scoffed, resting a hand on her hip. “Ran off in the middle of the night like a coward.”

Raven shook her head. “Apparently not. When we moved downstream four months ago, I thought we’d seen the last of him.”

Yang’s eyes widened. “The scouts found him?”

Raven scowled. “What’s left of him.”

A bleak silence hovered on the air. After a pause, Raven took a deep breath, sighing it out as she spoke.

“The scouts spotted his leather vest caught on a branch by the river,” Raven explained. “The raven-bone pin was still attached to the lapel, so we know it was his.”

Yang frowned, pondering the new information. Her brow furrowed.

“He could have just tossed it in,” she proposed, “to leave behind his tribe’s symbol.”

Raven shook her head again. “I thought so too, but they discovered something else. He’d been stabbed.”

Yang stood up straight, as if the revelation had hit her on the nose. She struggled for words. “What do you mean?”

“There was a thin tear through the center of the back that could have only been left by a blade.” Raven gestured to her sternum, where the blade had been driven through. “There was also a bloodstain that suggests he continued to bleed for a while before eventually being thrown into the river.”

Yang pressed a hand to her lips, staring into the middle-distance as she thought. Who she had once assumed to be a cowardly traitor may have actually been abducted and murdered. But why? Bandits made lots of enemies, but why select only this one for slaughter? 

She felt a new kind of betrayal -- not now by her fellow tribesman, but by herself, for so foolishly jumping to conclusions. She had spent time resenting him rather than mourning him, rather than seeking out his murderer and destroying them.

“Why?” Yang finally asked. Her voice was cold. “Who did this?”

Raven tilted her lips a fraction, nodding slyly with a hint of approval. “While I can’t be sure, I have my suspicions,” she answered. She held up a finger and pointed it at Yang. “You.”

She gasped in outrage. Yang's hair ignited with a flash. “How could you possibly--”

“No, no,” Raven groaned, rolling her eyes. “I don’t mean you killed him. I mean you’re the reason why.”

Her surprise knocked the strength out of her ire. She blinked, hair still burning. “I don’t understand.”

“Right,” Raven said. “You don’t understand the consequences of any of your actions.”

Yang grit her teeth. Raven held up a hand, encouraging her silence. Yang begrudgingly complied, fists curling. Her hair quietly extinguished.

“My guess is that Shay was killed because someone wanted information about the Spring Maiden,” Raven stated.

Something that was not rage coiled in Yang’s core. It was not vengeance either, nor fear. Whatever it was, it made Yang’s hands relax and her eyebrows sink down. 

“Our enemies are always watching,” Raven continued, voice low. “Whoever did this would only be so bold as to sneak into my camp and kidnap one of my men if they needed to gather information without raising the alarm.”

Her dull red eyes leveled with Yang’s as she lowered her voice to a growl. “You are the only thing in this camp that would merit such secrecy.”

Despite Raven’s calm appearance, the lingering insinuations in her voice made Yang feel small. Yang swallowed.

She looked to the floor, head bowing. “What do we do?”

Raven maintained her expressionless stare for a moment longer, then blinked slowly and drew her eyebrows together. Whatever Yang could not read on Raven’s face was gone now, and replaced with her characteristic scowl.

“Unfortunately, we missed our opportunity to identify the enemy months ago,” Raven said. She moved her hands to her hips. “However, luckily for us, it is unlikely Shay told them anything, or else they may have made another move.”

Yang looked back up and cocked an eyebrow at Raven’s vague choice of words. “Like what?”

Raven regarded Yang flatly. “Coming to kill you, for a start.”

She continued before Yang could fully process the likelihood of those events. “If it is indeed the power of the Spring Maiden they are after, they might have moved on.” Despite the promising light of this possibility, Raven’s frown deepened.

“But two days ago, when you foolishly used your power during the entrance exam, you were unaware that they may have been watching.”

“Well, how could I have known?” Yang objected.

“You should never have used them in the first place,” Raven countered sharply. 

“So what do you want me to do about it, eh?” she said. “Try extra hard not to be killed?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Raven replied.

That put a quick end to Yang’s arguments. She blinked at her mother, trying to gauge if she was serious or not. Her stance remained stern and her visage stoic. Not the lightest dusting of the driest humor touched Raven’s face.

Raven took a step towards her. Yang stood her ground, but felt her shoulders rise.

“I wanted you to attend Haven to learn how to kill huntsmen, as I did.” Raven’s chin raised slightly with pride. “But now, it is not only a matter of survival of our tribe that you leave for Haven.”

She reached out and put a hand on Yang’s upper arm. “It is a matter of your survival, too,” she said softly.

Yang’s eyes found a spot on the floor, and her hands found each other behind her back. She pressed her nails into her palms, tensing so hard that her hands began to shake. She leaned out of Raven’s touch.

Raven’s hand lifted back. For a moment, her face flickered. Yang only caught a mere glance -- her face returned to a fierce glare just as quickly as it had been dropped, and she crossed her arms again. “As much as I hate to admit it, the school can offer you protection in ways that would only put the tribe at risk,” Raven said. “I’m doing this for all our sakes.”

Yang stood tall, but internally, she shook her head with disappointment. The apparition that had flitted across her mother’s face had gone without a trace, and left behind the version she was much too familiar with.

“I know,” Yang said. “I understand.”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “So you’ll do it?” she asked. It wasn’t a request so much as surprise at the lack of resistance.

Yang’s hands released each other. Her fists formed at her sides. She looked like a true bandit princess -- and proud of it.

“I’ll do it for the tribe,” Yang said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to you if you figured out who Kestrel is in canon RWBY. (Hint: she's a real character from Volume Five!)


	3. Special Operative Schnee

Solitas was home to the coldest climate on Remnant. Mantle was protected from snow by a heating grid that ran throughout the city, but during the coldest part of the year, temperatures routinely reached below freezing for weeks at a time. The city of Atlas in the clouds was even more exposed to the cold, surrounded on all sides by the icy atmosphere, high winds, thin air and a general lack of sunshine from the sky or its people. In a word, when it came to cold, the Kingdom of Atlas reigned supreme.

Yet the internal hallways of Atlas Academy were always a comfortable room temperature, and Weiss appreciated that. The tile floors of the school were insulated from the cold ground and reflected sunbeams off the floor, giving the corridors a pleasant, sunny glow. As she stood in the elevator, she felt a breeze by her ankles, and noticed that the bottom of the walls were lined with vents, circulating the air and preventing it from getting too stuffy.

It was the little things that Weiss appreciated about this place. Things as small as good HVAC, or a bowl of candy at the receptionist’s counter.

She gingerly picked out a blue, hard candy wrapped in crinkly foil and inspected it. Was it blueberry or blue raspberry? She could never tell. She squinted at it with her good eye.

“Good morning!”

Weiss jumped. She looked up to see a hologram of a woman flicker to life behind the counter before her. She was “dressed” smartly in an immaculate collared shirt and a slim necktie. The symbol of the Kingdom of Atlas illuminated behind her.

“Oh. Hello,” Weiss acknowledged.

“Hello, WEISS,” the hologram said. Weiss blinked in shock at the hologram, but then recalled the elevator asking her to verify her identity.

Creepy A.I. was not one of the little things.

“Do you have an appointment scheduled with General Ironwood today?” the receptionist asked, lips stretched and teeth bared in a way that Weiss very much did not appreciate.

“I do,” she said. “At eleven o’clock?”

The receptionist blinked, smiling silently for a second. Then she nodded and said, “That is correct. Please proceed to the elevator.” An arrow pointing to her right appeared in the air next to the receptionist.

“Thank you,” Weiss said, smiling nervously at the hologram. It smiled back, unblinking.

She quickly made her way in the direction of the arrow. She looked down at the candy in her hand, twisting the wrapping. It made a crinkling noise that Weiss tried to muffle. Carefully, she unwrapped the candy and held it between her thumb and forefinger. It was no larger than a small grape. She popped the candy into her mouth and rolled it over her tongue.

She smiled. It was blueberry.

The elevator doors automatically opened when she stood in front of them. She stepped in and leaned against the wall, sucking on the candy idly.

As the doors closed, a chiming tone cued in the same voice from the first elevator.

“Hello,” it said serenely. “Please place your scroll on the terminal to verify your identity.”

Weiss rolled her functional eye, but complied. She was reaching for the pouch at the small of her back when she realized the candy wrapper was still in her hand. She tucked it in the outer pocket and swapped it out for her scroll. She tapped her scroll against a panel on the wall that pulsed with the signature blue light Atlas always radiated.

The chime sounded again. “Thank you. Welcome, WEISS. SCHNEE.”

The abrupt change from calm sincerity to robotic formality made Weiss chuckle. She put her scroll back in her bag and leaned back against the wall. 

The air vents tickled her ankles. The relaxed smile returned to her face as she rolled the blueberry candy across her tongue.

A few long moments later, she felt the elevator slow to a halt.

“FLOOR 74,” the automated voice said. Weiss stood off the wall and approached the exit. The chime sounded a last time, just as the doors of the elevator slid open. 

Weiss moved to step forward, but froze at the silhouette that suddenly blocked her path. She was not prepared for anybody to be standing on the other side, much less…

“Good morning, Weiss,” Winter said.

Weiss stared at her for a moment.

“Wih-er!” Weiss exclaimed. Then, she flushed. Winter raised an eyebrow.

Weiss’s tongue rolled the candy to her cheek. A telltale bulge stuck out of the side of her jaw. 

Winter’s eyes fell to it. Weiss’s ears burned.

“What is in your mouth,” Winter calmly demanded.

“Itsh jusht a bit of candy from downshtairj,” Weiss mumbled, stepping out of the elevator. She tried to walk past Winter, but she held out an arm to stop her.

Weiss looked up at her innocently.

Winter turned her gloved palm upwards.

“Spit it out,” Winter ordered.

Weiss gawked indignantly. “What? No, it’sh fine!” She moved to her left to get around her. Winter stuck her arm straight out, hitting Weiss in the nose. 

“Ow,” she complained.

“You’re meeting with the general in five minutes,” Winter insisted, “who is quite possibly the most powerful person in the entire world.” She stepped in front of Weiss and crossed her arms. “More importantly, he is my boss and you are my little sister.”

She once again presented her hand.

“Out,” Winter said. “Now.”

Weiss pouted at her, but she knew it was no use. Winter’s commanding glare needled under her defiance every time. She huffed.

“Wha-ewer,” she said, reaching into her pouch, “I can do ih myshelf.” She produced the wrapper with a flourish. Weiss cupped it in her palm, leaned over it, and deposited the sucker into it. Her whole face was flushed like a baboon, but she maintained eye contact with her sister through the whole process.

“There,” she said, balling the wrapper up. “Happy?”

For a moment, Winter’s gaze remained stern, but then she let out a long-suffering sigh and relented, placing her hands behind her back. She turned around and tilted her head, gesturing down the hallway. “Follow me.”

Weiss raised her eyebrows and stuck out her chin, issuing a small “hmph” of accomplishment. She began walking down the corridor, heels clicking, not giving her sister a second glance as she passed.

“You have a bit of drool on your lip,” Winter said behind her.

Weiss’s attitude dropped. Her eye widened in mortification.

Winter chose that moment to start walking after her, taking long, slow steps. When she walked past her, Weiss caught the sly smile on her face. 

Alright, Weiss thought. She’d won this round.

She wiped her lip with her sleeve and followed her sister down the hallway.

They ended up walking side by side, Weiss keeping pace with her sister’s longer strides by taking more frequent steps. _Different wavelengths, same speed,_ Weiss thought. Though they both wore heels, Weiss’s footfalls only made little clicking noises against the tiled floors, whereas each of Winter’s authoritative steps echoed across the entire floor.

Weiss intended to break the noisy silence. She looked up at her sister out of the corner of her eye. Winter's eyes were focused straight ahead and her bangs bounced with each thundering step she took. Her face, as well as her demeanor, was steely and cold.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” was all Weiss could think to say.

A pause, then. “I work here,” was Winter’s curt reply.

Weiss looked back down. While her hands were linked together in front of her body, Winter’s were grasped behind her back, giving her shoulders the illusion of broadness.

“But I also did have a role in securing this meeting,” Winter added. Her expression remained neutral. Weiss cocked her head.

“Did you?” she asked. “I had no idea.”

Winter still looked ahead, but her eyebrows drew together. “I personally delivered your military application,” she said. “Did you think he reviews every application that lands on his desk? Much less interviews them?”

“Well… no,” Weiss admitted, “but when I received the notice that he’s requested to meet with me, I assumed it was just about my application.”

“Which is why we don’t assume things,” Winter said, glancing down at Weiss sharply. Weiss flinched away, but squinted in confusion, her bad eye aching under the bandage. 

“It’s... not?” Weiss wondered.

Winter looked forward. “We’ll address that when we get inside,” she said.

They entered a round atrium. The glass dome overhead allowed sunlight to pour into the building, casting deep shadows on the marble pillars that lined the walls. They approached a set of stairs opposite to the entrance. Weiss suddenly realized how close they were to their destination.

As they climbed the stairs, Weiss’s cheerfulness was gradually replaced with anxiety. It was sinking in that Winter had implied that this meeting wasn’t about the military application, much in the same way that teeth sink into unsuspecting prey.  _ It wasn’t? _ Weiss’s thoughts echoed.  _ And his invitation neglected to mention that? _ She racked her brain for answers. What in the world could the general want to talk to Weiss about if not that? What did “quite possibly the most powerful man in the world” want with her? Even worse, and she shuddered to think about it: what did her _sister’s_ _ boss  _ want with her?

They stopped at the doors to the general’s office. A guard stood on either side of the doorway, each embodying the same icy stillness that Winter did. Her hands were cold as she wrung them together. What if she got in trouble for doing something prohibited completely innocently, like suck on a blueberry candy? What if she got arrested because she broke some odd, unfair rule that she didn’t know about?

Winter flashed the guard to her left some sort of identification that disappeared into her right breast pocket. She ignored her sister’s sudden apprehension -- or maybe just didn’t notice, Weiss wanted to think. But Winter raised her other hand and knocked firmly on the door before Weiss even had a chance to… to what, to stop her?

They waited a heartbeat. 

Then, from behind the door: “Come in.”

The old doors slid apart before them. Weiss stepped back, surprised. She caught her footing and moved into her sister’s shadow. 

Winter stepped into the room, forcing her to follow.

As Winter snapped a salute, Weiss looked around the room with her uncovered eye. The ceiling and carpet were predominantly dark blue in color, but were woven with golden constellations to resemble the night sky. Two of the walls were lined with bookshelves; the wall across from the door was floor-to-ceiling glass, letting the morning light illuminate the darkly-colored office. Elevated two steps above the rest of the room sat a broad, steel-grey desk, and behind it sat a broad, steel-grey man.

General Ironwood looked up from the projections on his desk. His blue eyes took a moment to land on Winter, but when they did, his face lit up in recognition. Then, his eyes shifted to Weiss.    


They made eye contact.

Weiss mustered her nerve and stepped out from behind her sister. Her hands remained tensely clasped in front of her.

_ Oh, get a grip,  _ someone in Weiss’s head criticized.

His gaze softened. “Miss Schnee,” he addressed.

Weiss had stopped in the middle of the room, unsure of what to say. She landed on, “Good morning.”

The general stood, and Weiss felt like if she had been sitting, she would have stood too. The steps created the illusion that he was something like five heads taller than her, when in reality it was probably only three or four. It was still much more than Weiss was anticipating.

_ Chin up,  _ the same voice chirped, not at all meant to comfort.

He moved out from behind his desk. He walked to the wall and grabbed a blue cushioned armchair from the corner. With one arm, he picked it up, swung it around, and placed it next to his desk. He extended his (intimidatingly strong) hand to the chair. “Please, have a seat,” he offered.

She nodded courteously and began approaching the chair.

_ What do you say?  _ the voice reminded her condescendingly.

“Thank you,” Weiss said automatically. She cringed at the awkward delay.

The general didn’t seem to mind. He bowed his head politely. “Of course,” he said, walking back around to his side of the desk. Winter gave Weiss a look, but said nothing, and marched up the steps to stand at ease to the general’s right.

He took a seat in his own office chair, just as she sat down delicately in the armchair. The cushion was much deeper than she anticipated. She sank into it by accident, suddenly enveloped by the texture of suede. He paid her no mind, waving a hand over his desk to dismiss the files he had open. The table went dark. Weiss swiftly recovered, getting into position -- sitting up straight with her hands folded in her lap -- just as he swiveled on his chair to fully face her.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation,” Ironwood said.

“It’s an honor to be here,” Weiss responded simply.

He smiled at her, but Weiss didn’t see much flattery in it. It quickly left his face.

“How’s your eye?” he asked. 

She reached up out of reflex and ran her fingertips over the rough, familiar bandages stuck in place. 

“It’s healing very well,” Weiss said. “The doctor told me that it should only scar, and will probably leave no lasting damage to my vision.”

“That’s good,” he commented. “Did you enjoy your candy on the ride up?”

Weiss’s breath caught. She stammered. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your tongue is a bit blue,” he observed. Her hand awkwardly jerked down to her lips. A smile, a more genuine one, grew on his face. “I’m partial to mints myself. I grab one every time I’m down there.”

Weiss stared at him.

Then, she also smiled. “You have good taste,” she said.

Ironwood nodded briefly and leaned back in his chair.

“So,” he said. “I’m guessing you’re curious about why I called you here.”

Weiss nodded honestly. Her hand returned to her lap. “Winter told me that it’s apparently not about my application,” she said.

“Well, in a way, it is,” he clarified. “I wanted to ask you about that, if I may.” 

Weiss sat up straighter. “About my application?”

“About why you wanted to study at Beacon over Atlas."

_ Oh. _

She opened her mouth, and closed it again. He watched her. 

The voice in her mind returned.  _ Do you know the answer yourself?  _ it taunted.

She considered her options. She trusted him, Weiss realized. But she was also unsure of what he wanted to hear. Was it a test? Was he angered by her decision? It would be the truth if she were to say that she wanted to explore the world outside her kingdom, but would that imply that she disliked her kingdom? Which wasn’t true -- at least, most of the time. But the heart of the matter lay in her personal reasons to leave, not a slight against the entire Kingdom of Atlas. Did she trust him enough to dive into  _ those  _ reasons? Her fingers curled. What if her father heard about this? What if he caught her confessing her… her…

Her hands were balled in her skirt.

“I just want to leave,” she blurted.

A pause. He nodded.

“I understand,” he said.

She looked up at him in surprise. He met her gaze, hands folded thoughtfully.

_ Did he? _

“Really,” he said. He placed his hands in his lap. “I’m not offended, either.”

Weiss stared for a moment longer. She untensed her hands and busied herself with smoothing out her skirt, doing her best to ignore his kind gaze. 

“Why did you ask me that?” she said.

“Well,” he answered, “now one thing I know for sure is that I’m not going to accept your application.”

Her eye flew open wide and her head snapped up. She jerked forward. “What?!”

“Well, obviously not,” he said frankly. “You don’t want to stay here.”

She paused, mouth hanging open. Well, that  _ was _ true. But...

There was a cold feeling in her chest as she leaned back in her chair. A crushed feeling. She leaned into the suede cushions.

“Hear me out,” he requested. 

She watched the hem of her skirt, slowly rubbing her fingertips across the lace.

“I know that you received your injury in a fight against a Geist,” he said, “a particularly strong Grimm that a fighter of your age would have a slim chance of beating.” Weiss sank further. “Winter told me the purpose of this was to defend your wish to attend Beacon.”

“It was our father’s idea,” Weiss said.

Ironwood sighed shortly. “Of course it was.” 

She raised an eyebrow at that. 

“But you were still prepared to fight for your chance to leave Atlas,” he continued. “I’m not going to take that away from you just because you lost an unfair match.”

Weiss’s frown deepened. She rubbed her thumb along her palm. It did not soothe her hurt.

“But... I still want to be a Huntress,” she said. 

Her mind hissed at her the moment she said it.  _ Baby, _ it spat. _ Listen to how whiny you sound.  _ The feeling in her chest tightened.

Ironwood looked over his shoulder at Winter. Winter, who had been still this entire conversation, shifted her eyes over to him, and nodded.

He looked back at Weiss. “If you accept our offer, you will be.”

She pulled her gaze up to stare at him. 

_ What?  _ she thought.

_ What?  _ the voice said, at the same time.

She didn’t know what the offer was. She didn’t know what this proposal could mean. She didn’t even know what he was talking about.

But suddenly, she felt more giddy than she had in weeks.

Damn the childishness, she thought to herself. The feeling in her chest was replaced with a warm, steady heartbeat that she could feel in her ears. She leaned forward, blue eye twinkling.

“What do you need me to do?” she said.

That seemed to be what he wanted to hear. His eyes twinkled at her.

He put a hand on the desk between them. “First, I need your assurance that nothing said from this point forward leaves this room. Understood?”

She nodded. Her curiosity piqued.

“Good. Next, some context.”

He reached over the desk and flicked his hand upward. A hologram of a virtual filing cabinet rose from the table. He paged through it briefly before selecting a file, pulling up on the projection. Five thumbnails -- four of documents and one of an image -- appeared in the air. She watched with interest as he dismissed the documents and dragged the image towards her, flipping it around for her to see.

Weiss leaned in to inspect it. The hologram displayed a picture that appeared to be taken from some kind of camera footage. The date in the corner was from two days ago, among other jargon Weiss’s eye passed over. The picture captured a girl in motion, at this moment crouching as two bear-like Grimm that they didn’t have in Solitas charged her from either side. Though the bluish quality of the hologram somewhat harmed the richness of the picture’s colors, Weiss could tell that the girl’s hair was a brighter yellow than probably any other person’s hair on Remnant. However, the most curious detail in the image that Weiss narrowed her eye to inspect was a point of light around the girl’s eyes. To Weiss, they looked like small flames, emanating from her red irises. She squinted at it, trying to interpret what she was seeing. Her Semblance, perhaps?

She sat back in her chair, her eye still focused on the image. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Yang Branwen,” Ironwood said. “This is an image from her entrance exam at Haven Academy from two days ago.”

Weiss gaped. “She’s my age? But she looks…”

“Older, I know,” Ironwood said. “She was raised in a bandit tribe in Northern Anima. They’re not the type to have long childhoods.”

Weiss regarded the image in a new light. Her clothes did seem atypical for a Mistralian citizen. The silver gauntlets on her arms also seemed older and less meticulously maintained than those of a Huntress inside the kingdom. 

“One of my contacts at Haven sent me this two days ago,” Ironwood said. “She’s someone we’ve been looking for for a long time, so to see her show herself so abruptly without knowing her intentions has us rather... concerned.”

“Why?” Weiss asked. “What’s special about her?”

Ironwood hesitated. This time, he did not glance at Winter -- Winter glanced at him, moving for the second time in the last ten minutes. That novelty intensified Weiss’s curiosity.

Ironwood shook his head.

“Unfortunately, that is not information I can share with you at this time,” he said.

Weiss pursed her lips and looked down. “I understand,” she said, not completely untruthfully. With just those words, she knew that that question was going to bother her, whether she liked it or not. Winter’s gaze returned forward, maintaining her expressionlessness.

“But…” Weiss started. Ironwood’s brow raised.

She tried to push down her curiosity, but something still drew her attention, and now she'd said it. “If I may ask…” She pointed at the girl’s eyes, with the glowing light. “What’s that?”

Ironwood stared for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. He leaned back in his chair. “Her Semblance, I assume.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Weiss said. 

Ironwood nodded absently as he watched a spot on his desk. He didn’t speak. 

Weiss leaned forward. “Sir?”

He blinked, eyes focusing again. He turned his attention back to her. “Yes. Sorry. Gods above, I get so tired around lunchtime. You might have to wake me up next time,” he joked.

She giggled politely. He shared her smile, but the distance in his eyes still lingered.

“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat. “Now that you know all this, I’ll make you my offer, and we can go to lunch.”

He dismissed the image from his desk and rested his arms on his chair. She straightened her back, as if standing at attention.

“Yang Branwen’s sudden appearance worries both my associates at Haven and us here in Atlas,” he said. “If she is simply there to train to fight Grimm, we have no right to stop her.” His face turned dark. “But if she is there as a part of some scheme on behalf of her tribe, some threat that may bring harm to the civilians of Mistral, then we need to know. 

“My associates sent this information to me because they trust that we have the means to gather this information without causing a disturbance at Haven or alerting the tribe to our activities.”

He paused, regarding Weiss. “And I believe that we do.”

The room was silent for a moment. Weiss tilted her head, looking at nothing as she pondered his words.

“You’re…”

She had to be misinterpreting him, she thought. What she thought he meant surely couldn’t be what he really was asking of her. Still, she looked back up at him.

“You’re asking me to spy on her?”

“Not officially,” he said. 

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“We can secure you a place at Haven Academy,” he said. “You won’t be an operative for the Atlesian military like your sister, don’t worry. You’ll just be Weiss, who wants to be a Huntress somewhere that isn’t Atlas.”

Weiss stayed frozen, but a familiar heavy feeling began forming in her stomach.

“All you need to do,” he said, “is send some very detailed weekly letters to your sister back at home.”

Weiss’s eye rose to meet Winter’s cold gaze. Winter nodded once.

Weiss looked back at Ironwood. He watched her with a similarly grave expression. She narrowed her eye at him.

“So,” she said, fists tense in her lap. He acknowledged her with his eyes, eyebrows lifting slightly.

“You want me to go to Haven Academy,” she said, “befriend a bandit for reasons you don’t seem to want to tell me,” which made his gaze sharpen for a moment, “and just tell you if she does anything… suspicious?”

“That’s the idea, yes,” he said.

Her eye remained narrowed.

Without all the information, she knew she was at a disadvantage. She couldn’t fairly judge the risks she might unknowingly be putting herself in balance with, but she also definitely didn’t assume the worst -- he would tell her if this was dangerous, she thought. She trusted him that much.

And beyond that, he promised her that she would become a Huntress. No, more than that, she realized.

He promised her a chance to be free.

_ Free with side effects,  _ she thought. 

A pause. 

_ Better than not at all. _

Her face softened. She exhaled, the conflict and indecision escaping her.

He raised an eyebrow. 

She let an easy smile spread onto her face and nodded. 

“I’m in.”


	4. Dusk Nightshade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW for Tauradonna, mental abuse, and Adam being creepy. This chapter will contain the first and last "onscreen" portrayal of toxic Tauradonna. NOT an April Fools joke.

As a First Lieutenant of the Vale branch of the White Fang, Blake earned a fairly large tent at their encampment in Forever Fall. The second largest, in fact. If she was a Captain, it would be the largest tent, and have privileged access to things like rugs that protected one’s belongings from the wet ground, and a Dust-powered space heater that actually did something against the cold wind that sometimes blew through the tarp and made her miserable. 

Blake was fortunate, then, that her partner was a Captain, and that the Captain was away today. 

She appreciated standing on a dry, flat carpet while she stood in front of the full-length mirror. She soaked up the warmth radiating from the heating dish in the corner as she pondered her reflection.

“...Hmm…”

“Having trouble?”

“I like both.”

“Talk to me.”

Blake held the purple turtleneck against her body. She looked down at it thoughtfully in the mirror.

“This one has a nice color. And I think it’s definitely something Dusk Nightshade would wear.”

“Oh yeah?” Ilia said, draped lazily over a folding chair. She popped another grape into her mouth. “How come?”

“I feel like she’s a more fashionable, trendy kind of girl,” Blake said. “And it’s sleeveless, which we both like.”

“You know,” Ilia said, chewing, “it’s probably fine if it’s just something Blake would wear, instead of doing this whole weird, like, roleplaying thing. Grape?” She held out the vine.

Blake walked across the tent and plucked a berry off the stem. “Thanks. And it’s not weird, it’s going undercover. This alias needs to hold for five months, at least, so if anyone even suspects I’m Blake Belladonna and not just some Beacon student, the whole operation goes south.”

“Well, you’re going to have to do more than just change your top,” Ilia said. “What’s the other option?”

Blake crushed the grape between her teeth and put down the turtleneck. She picked up another item, a black crop top. She held it up to her collarbones and posed in the mirror.

“Ooh, I like that one,” Ilia commented. “A lot more Blake-y.”

“Well, yeah,” Blake said, lukewarm. “Like I said, I’m not looking for what  _ I  _ would wear -- I’m looking for what _ Dusk Nightshade  _ would wear.”

“But isn’t it pretty?” Ilia remarked. “It’s got a high collar, the Menagerie criss-cross thing that’s in season, and you love crop tops.”

“Tell me why I’m taking fashion advice from a girl wearing a uniform?”

Ilia stuck out her tongue. “Just because I’m not high-ranking doesn’t mean I don’t have taste.” She dropped another grape into her mouth.

Blake smiled to herself and regarded her outfit in the mirror. The shirt matched the pants and the thigh-high boots, but revealed more skin than her usual outfit. She ran her fingertips down her exposed stomach idly as the ears atop her head slowly turned down.

“I don’t know,” Blake said. “I don’t think Adam would like it.”

There was a pause. Ilia stopped chewing.

“Well, that’s why you didn’t ask him for advice, did you?” Ilia responded. “You came to your dear old buddy Ilia.”

Blake looked at herself in the mirror. She tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

She sighed out a chuckle. “That I did.”

Blake turned around and Ilia held out the bunch of grapes again. Blake smiled and pulled another fruit off the vine.

“You know, I think I’ll go with this one,” she decided. Ilia cheered.

“Do you think we should just... chop it?”

Blake gasped, then laughed in surprise.

“Ohhhh, that would be so bad.”

“Why not? I personally think Dusk Nightshade has short hair,” Ilia reckoned.

She snipped the scissors loudly, making Blake flinch. She glared at Ilia’s reflection in the mirror. Ilia shrugged innocently.

“Oh come on, pleeease?” she begged. “It might actually help your disguise!”

Blake lowered her eyelids. “It will not.”

“Nuh-uh,” Ilia said. She gestured to her eye with the scissors, which made Blake flinch. “When you’re wearing your mask, they can’t really see your face. So the next most prominent way someone would identify you is by your trait, yeah?”

“Uh-huh,” Blake said. “We were gonna cover my ears with a bow, though, remember?” She flicked her ear for emphasis.

“No, but exactly!” Ilia said. “That’s what we do in the White Fang, but humans obviously can’t do that. The next thing they’d recognized is the hair. It’s usually unique to that person, and it’s also really important to the individual’s silhouette.”

Blake considered this perspective. Ilia’s coiled ponytail certainly was unique. Blake could admit that, because Ilia could pass as human at a glance, and because she wore a uniform, she sometimes resorted to identifying her by her hair, even if she did it subconsciously. 

Which was because it was the only unique thing about Ilia, she realized. The White Fang scouts all wore plain grey jumpsuits which they weren’t allowed to alter with any kind of decoration. Similar to other members of the White Fang without obvious traits, Ilia’s mask had custom horns attached to it, but that was the only difference between her mask and the thousands of others worn by White Fang infantry. She styled her hair that way every day because it was her chosen form of self expression, or her _only_ form of self expression.

Blake looked at her own reflection. Unlike Ilia, she knew she had many more options of how to express herself, a privilege that came with her rank. Although, she still tended towards dark-colored outfits -- better for covert operations, Adam told her once. The same rationale applied for why she avoided jewelry, and glittery nail polish. Even if she was interested, which she usually wasn’t, it would probably make her easier to spot in shadows, or something along those lines. And she hadn’t cut her hair more than a trim in years, since her partner always complimented her on it, but she didn’t mind that; she could always tie it back, even though she didn’t, but that was just a personal preference. Like that shirt that she picked today -- that was her choosing to express herself. With Ilia’s encouragement of course. And she still decided to put a white jacket over it, with long coattails that covered up her back, because she still didn’t think Adam would feel good about her going out wearing such revealing clothing. And also because her previous outfit had had coattails. Even if she had felt inexplicably excited when she’d put the shirt on. Even if it had brought her joy.

She looked at the mirror. She saw her reflection.

She wanted to see Dusk Nightshade’s.

“Chop it,” she ordered.

“Woah, you sure?” Ilia said. “You really took your time on that one.”

She reached up. A long strand of hair brushed against her fingers.

“I did, didn’t I?” she said.

It took about an hour of spraying, measuring, cutting, drying, and complaining about how thick Blake’s hair was, but when all was said and done, more of Blake’s hair sat in a bag on the floor than remained on her head.

They had decided on a length just above Blake’s shoulders. Now that her hair was dry, its subtle waviness made it appear even shorter, falling halfway between her shoulder and her jaw. When she swung her head, the locks framing her face would brush across her jaw, then bounce back into place with almost cartoonish energy. Ilia just gave her bangs a little trim, but even those had a new life to them, somehow making her yellow eyes glow a little brighter.

She smiled at herself in the mirror. Her head felt lighter and freer than it had in years. She did too.

Ilia squinted at Blake’s reflection. She crossed her fingers. “Good smile or bad smile? You’re smiling way too wide for it to be a good smile.”

Blake laughed, almost forgetting to quiet it. “No, good smile. Thank you, Ilia, I… I love it.”

Ilia sighed dramatically. “Oh, thank the Gods. Wow, my hands hurt,” she said, shaking them out. Blake laughed again.

“Well,” Ilia said. She walked across the tent to where their shopping bag sat on the floor. Blake turned around in her chair and watched as Ilia crouched down to rustle through it. “Time for the finishing touch.”

Blake furrowed her brow.

“Let’s bleach it!” Ilia declared.

Blake gaped. Her ears shot back. “What?!”

Ilia broke, laughing. “No, I’m kidding! I’m kidding! Oh no, your face!”

Blake scowled as Ilia continued her fit.

“I’m sorry, I went too far,” she apologized insincerely. “But seriously, can you imagine? You’d look like a Schnee!”

Blake’s ears pinned down and she wrinkled her nose. “Eugh. No thank you.”

“I mean, technically you already do,” Ilia said. “I think one of their daughter’s natural hair colors is black?”

“Really?” Blake said. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Eh, I don’t remember,” Ilia confessed. “Probably some gossip from prep school.”

“I don’t think I could imagine that,” Blake said, “me with white hair or a Schnee with black hair.”

“Well, never say never,” Ilia said. “Here it is.”

Out of the bag, she pulled a wide, black ribbon.

Blake beheld it somberly. “Is that…?”

“Yup,” Ilia said, regarding it with sudden seriousness. She made eye contact with Blake. “May I?”

Blake nodded.

Ilia walked across the tent, holding out the ribbon in one hand like a sacred artifact. Blake turned back to the mirror and watched in the reflection as Ilia came to stand behind her.

“Sorry if I accidentally touch your ears,” Ilia said.

“Don’t worry, I trust you,” Blake assured her.

Ilia smiled weakly at her and nodded. She held up the ribbon and unraveled it, holding the two ends in her hands. Blake exhaled slowly as Ilia gently wrapped the ribbon in a figure-eight motion twice around her ears, pulling just tight enough for Blake to feel the fabric graze her sensitive ear furnishings. One of her ears involuntarily twitched.

“Sorry,” Ilia said.

“You’re fine,” Blake quickly dismissed. “You can keep going.”

Delicately, Ilia brought the two ends of the ribbon together and threaded them around and underneath the middle of the figure-eight, so that the ribbon scrunched in the center to form a bow. Then, she firmly knotted the tails together behind the bow and let the extra ribbon fall down the back of Blake’s head.

Ilia put a finger on the knot, pressing it to her scalp as her other hand retreated into her pocket. She produced four bobby pins, putting three in between her teeth and wielding one between her fingers.

“Why do you have pins in your uniform?” Blake asked, surprised.

“‘M a thief that wears a ‘onytail,” she mumbled through the pins. “Comes in handy.”

She slid a pin under the knot in one direction, then took another from her mouth and inserted it the other way. She repeated the motion with the remaining pins under the fake knot visible from the front.

Ilia took a step back, admiring her handiwork. “I think I’m done. Did you get all that?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Blake said.

She leaned forward and inspected the bow in the mirror. The ribbon was wide enough that it covered all the way from the base of her ears to the tip, without even a suggestion that they were there. She swished her head from side to side experimentally. The bow stayed secure.

She got out of her chair. “Move for a sec?” she told Ilia.

Ilia cocked an eyebrow, but nodded and stepped back.

Blake crouched and performed a spontaneous front flip, completing a full forward somersault before landing on her feet. The bow stayed.

She swung her arms back and tried a backflip, rotating 360 degrees in the air and landing on her toes. The bow still stayed.

She nodded once. “Perfect. Thank you.”

Ilia raised her chin proudly. “Not a problem.”

Blake sighed and reached up to fix her hair. “Well… how do I look?” she said, brushing a strand coyly behind her ear.

Ilia gave her a brief once-over, then a thumbs-up. “Like a bonafide human Huntress, Miss Nightshade.”

Blake turned towards the full-length mirror. She walked a few steps closer to it, examining her new appearance.

Everything was different. The girl before her wore fancy boots and trendy tops and stylish haircuts and cute bows that Blake could never have seen herself actually wearing before this afternoon. When she had envisioned Dusk Nightshade, she thought she was transforming into another person, but in the outfit she sported now, she somehow felt… right. Like she’d ended up as a different person, yet herself all over again.  _ She _ loved the fancy boots and the trendy top and the stylish hair and… well, yes, she even liked the bow a little, despite what it symbolized. If it weren’t for that white jacket, Blake thought, this might have just become what she wore all the time.

She caught Ilia’s eye in the reflection, meeting her gaze of approval. She had her to thank for all this, she realized.

“Think I look like Dusk Nightshade?” she asked.

“I mean, I guess so,” Ilia said. “But I could get used to this version of Blake.”

Blake looked back at her own reflection. She smiled. “Me too.”

“ _ What _ .”

Her blood ran cold. 

“Adam!” Blake exclaimed, whipping around. The world whirled around her.

He stood with his arm parting the curtain to his tent, frozen in the makeshift doorway.

He stared at her from behind his mask. “Blake.”

The color drained from her face at the iciness in his voice. She mustered a placating smile.

“What is going on here?” he said slowly, deliberately, stepping into the tent.

Blake had frozen, stuck with that terrible smile on her face. Her mouth wouldn’t make any other shape. Why couldn’t she say anything? It was just Adam!

Ilia stepped forward. “We were putting together Lieutenant Blake’s disguise for her mission,” she answered calmly. “Sir.”

Adam’s silence echoed. He began to slink towards Blake. 

She must have been so surprised, she didn’t know what to say, Blake thought to herself. She took a shaky breath and pushed it all down.

“Everything’s all right, Adam,” she said. “Ilia was just helping me out.” He continued forward.

“Why are you back so early?” Blake asked, fishing for a response. He was so close now. Only a few more small steps, and they’d be breathing the same air.

“I thought you were going to be out until late, so I thought I’d… wait here for you,” she reasoned. “I wanted to see you as soon as you got back.”

She kicked herself. That wasn’t what she meant. Too late now.

He was leaning over her now, stopping short just a few inches away. She felt her heart beating in her chest as she looked up at him, smile worsening. 

He raised a hand, slowly, creeping towards her face. The hairs stood on her arms.

His hand ducked past her face and he snatched up a lock of her severed hair. He lifted it towards his face. She could feel his gaze as he inspected it and her behind his mask.

“Why did you do this?” he said.

With each inhale, her chest rose. She tensed her muscles, struggling to breathe without trembling. Why was she trembling? It was Adam.

“I…”

“It was my idea.”

Blake’s eyes shot fearfully to Ilia. She stood with her fists at her sides, glaring daggers into Adam’s back.

Adam slowly turned towards Ilia. Blake remained frozen where she stood, but her eyes flashed desperately at her.

She knew Adam wouldn’t hurt her. She did. Why was she afraid?

“In order to ensure that her identity remained a secret on her mission,” Ilia stated coolly, “I insisted that I cut her hair myself.”

His grip tightened on her hair.

She knew it, didn’t she?

He grit his teeth and snarled.

_ Oh no,  _ she thought,  _ it was Adam. _

“No, she didn’t, I did!” Blake burst, her voice flying back to her. She reached out a hand. “Please, she didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“ENOUGH!”

Blake’s words died with a whimper. Ilia flinched.

Adam was still, sparking with a fierce, red glow.

Blake’s heart raced.

The red dimmed, glacially slowly.

Finally, Adam growled out a sigh.

“There are more important matters at hand,” he said. His voice was quiet with what Blake hoped was restraint.

“Blake,” he said. She startled.

“We’ll discuss this later.”

She swallowed. Later somehow felt worse than now.

He reached up and rested a hand on his mask.

She didn’t think she could speak. She didn’t think she  _ should  _ speak. She waited for him to say something with bated breath, a confusing mix of horror and relief clashing in her stomach.

“There’s been a change of plans,” he stated. He didn’t face her. 

She glanced over to Ilia. Ilia watched him, less like a cat watches its prey and more like it watches the vet.

He spoke. “One of our spies in Mistral just confirmed that Weiss Schnee has been accepted to Haven Academy.”

The change in tone finally allowed Blake some room to breathe, her body releasing an ounce of tension. “What?”

He removed his hand from his face and let it fall to his side. She closed her mouth.

“Although it pains me to do this,” he said, “this opportunity cannot be wasted.”

He turned back to Blake. She put on a brave face and looked into the slits on his mask.

“Instead of attending Beacon,” he told her, “I’m sending you to Haven.”

Blake’s eyebrow twitched. “Why?”

“To kill her.”

Simple as that.

Blake heard Ilia gasp softly. Her sight remained on him, unmoving.

_ What. What. What. _

“Will this interfere with your infiltration?” he asked.

Blood pulsed in her ears like a chant. She swallowed dryly.

“No,” she responded, somehow. She had said it without thinking. “I will still be able to plant the virus if I come to Beacon for the Vytal Festival.” 

Her hands hung still at her sides, both her body and voice moving mechanically, as if piloted by someone far away. 

“But I am more likely to be successful at both tasks if I carry out the assassination after I have planted the virus, to avoid suspicion.”

What was she saying?

Carry out an assassination? Who was this? 

Was this who Dusk Nightshade was?

Her only job at Beacon was to upload the Black Queen virus from Adam’s mysterious contact to the CCT system. She hadn’t planned to instead be at Haven  _ stalling _ for a semester, to have to also carry out an  _ assassination _ while posing as a student. She hadn’t planned to be so far away.

Oh.

_ Oh?  _

That wasn’t something she had considered.

She would get very far away. Very far away from here indeed.

But what about Ilia?

No…

But Adam…!

_ No. _

But  _ Blake. _

It dawned on her like the sun on a battlefield. If she had command over her body, she would be looking around, down at her hands, up at the sky, feeling the sunlight and that she was irrevocably, ineffably changed.

But her body was cemented in place, staring at him.

She nodded at Adam. “Yes,” she said.

“I will do what needs to be done.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it slipped off her tongue as easily as one.

“Good,” Adam said. “Now get out.”

Blake’s moment of clarity fled, but in its place returned feeling in her legs and face. Rather than sunshine, she felt the bitter wind blow through the tent. 

“Okay,” she said coldly.

She looked to Ilia, whose eyes were trained on the floor. 

“Let’s go, Ilia.”

Blake made for the exit. The legs that were shivering in place moments ago now eagerly carried her forward, her palpitating heart compelling them forth. Her vision was set straight ahead, but as she passed him, she knew Adam’s eyes followed her. She stood a little straighter as she marched by. Blake glanced over her shoulder at Ilia, who trailed behind her. She hadn’t looked up.

Blake ripped the curtain open and stepped outside. The sun had set, and the sky was quickly darkening. She kept walking.

They had made it no more than a few steps out of the tent when Blake’s vision suddenly filled with spots. She stumbled forward, blinking rapidly.

Ilia caught her arm. “Blake? Are you okay?”

Blake teetered, trying to regain her balance, yet she couldn’t. Her head spun.

“Yeah,” she said, discovering a shortness of breath. She leaned against Ilia.

Blake blinked again. Her vision blurred.

“You’re okay,” Ilia said, placing a hand on Blake’s shoulder. “You’re okay.”

_ I am,  _ Blake thought to herself, but she felt Ilia’s hand on her shoulder and was content to just let it stay there. Her heart thrummed in her ears.

There was an aching feeling in the bridge of her nose. She looked down, watching the blurry ground as it passed by. She saw the fuzzy shapes of her new outfit, with the stupid shirt she liked and the jacket she hated that covered it up.

The first few drops hit her dumb new shoes. The next couple got stopped in the short, silly hair brushing up against her face. She sniffled.

“I’m okay,” she repeated. More tears rushed down her face.

“Let’s get you to your tent, okay?” Ilia said, gripping Blake’s shoulder.

Blake reached up and touched her hand, nodding. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that took a turn.  
> The next chapter will not be up for another few days. Thank you to everyone who's gotten onboard so far!


	5. Fond Farewell

“Is the ship ready?”

That was the first thing Cinder said to her this morning. It was never “good morning” with her -- Crimson always knew to expect some kind of demand, or snappy remark.

Crimson looked up from cleaning Penumbra. She rubbed her eye.

Cinder wore… _pants._

It wasn’t unheard of, but Crimson couldn’t NOT stare. She rubbed her eye again, harder, to rid of the sting and a possible hallucination. She blinked the irritation away.

“Yes,” she answered. “Nice pants.”

Cinder ignored her as she strutted towards the bullhead. “Do you have everything you need?”

Crimson’s hands returned to her blade. She sat on her luggage trunk, an old, dusty thing that probably belonged to Hazel once upon a time. Parallax leaned upright with its muzzle against her thigh. She cradled the barrel in one hand and nocked Penumbra’s handle into the underside of the rifle.

“Locked and loaded!” Crimson said, clicking the blade into parallel.

Cinder didn’t acknowledge her. She busied herself with a checklist on her scroll, occasionally glancing up for confirmation and nodding sharply. Crimson’s gaze returned to Cinder’s outfit. The pants in question were skinny, teal-grey jeans with knee pads sewn into the design. The orange vest she wore open was appropriately scandalous for Cinder’s fashion sense, but moreover complemented the jeans nicely and brought out her amber eyes.

Crimson rubbed her own silver eye once more. It watered.

Cinder made a scoffing noise in the back of her throat. She glanced at Crimson, checked something off, and put a hand on her hip.

“What is it.”

Crimson jerked to attention. Her hand stilled in place over her eye.

“Huh?”

“You keep rubbing your eye,” Cinder stated. “You’re _crying_.” She sounded vaguely annoyed.

Crimson blinked consciously. Her silver eye pulsed as another layer of moisture rushed along her waterline.

“Yeah,” Crimson realized. She wiped her eye with the back of her hand and looked down at it. “I don’t know why. I think it’s just irritated.”

Cinder raised an eyebrow. “And how is your other eye?”

Crimson’s hand jumped to her eyepatch.

Her uncovered eye watered.

“Still tender,” Crimson admitted. Maybe she was imagining it, but she felt the left side of her face throb. “She told me it would take a few days before it was fully healed.”

Cinder regarded her with an unreadable stare.

Crimson’s eye burned.

Cinder nodded once and turned away.

“As long as you don’t act suspicious, it’s no concern of mine,” she said. “Load that crate and get in, we’re ready to leave.”

Crimson blinked away the moisture building up in her eye. “Got it,” she said.

She stood and slung Parallax over her shoulder, slipping it under her red cape with an effortlessness that told years of practice. She tucked the cleaning rag into her belt with a tug. After one more swipe at her eye, she leaned down and lifted her trunk, carrying it with both arms as she walked up the ramp.

Once she entered the ship, the hull door creaked mechanically and began to close. She set her trunk down on the floor and strapped it to the wall with a seatbelt. Crimson rubbed her eye again and walked to the front of the ship, where Cinder sat with her checklist.

The blood red sky beyond the windshield was cloudless to the horizon this morning. “Morning” was a strong word to describe it in Evernight; there was no sun to rise nor blue sky to lighten, only shards of moon shining brighter and darker with the rotation of the planet. To Crimson, the explanation was obvious: her master had somehow magicked the sun out of the sky like most other weather, because if she didn't do it, who else could have? But if Crimson had not grown up here, she reckoned she would have been driven mad by the seemingly nonexistent and perpetual passage of time.

“I think I’m gonna miss this place,” Crimson thought out loud.

Cinder huffed. “Speak for yourself. We’re going.”

She leaned over and hit a switch on the dashboard. The cockpit sparkled to life, dials jumping forward before settling into place and lights blinking awake all at once.

Crimson took one long, last look at the bloody sky.

Both her eyes ached.

“Strap in,” Cinder ordered.

Crimson tore her gaze away and turned around. She walked back to her luggage and sat down, strapping herself in next to her trunk. She put her elbow on it and rested her face on her hand.

“How long is the flight?” she asked.

“We’ll rendezvous with Emerald, Mercury and Neo in Forever Fall at eleven hundred hours,” Cinder responded. “After we refuel, it’s non-stop to Mistral for another nine.” She flicked a few levers on the dashboard and placed her hand on the throttle. With a push, the engines of the ship suddenly roared to life. Crimson felt the hull vibrate.

“I hope you’re sitting comfortably,” Cinder said.

Crimson rubbed her eye one more time and leaned into her hand.

The ship’s turbines turned downwards, and with a rev of the rotor, they lifted into flight.

The _whoosh_ of the bullhead’s engines passing over Blake’s head startled her, but by the time she looked up, the ship had already disappeared over the trees. The sound of its departure, like every other sound, was strangely muffled. She hoped it wouldn't take her long to adjust to having the bow over her ears all day if _this_ was how bad human hearing was.

“There they go,” Ilia said. She stood to Blake’s right, having paused from loading their own ship. “So long, unpleasant company.”

“They weren’t that bad,” Blake remarked. “The silent one gave me the creeps, though.”

“Oh, she was fine,” Ilia said. “The green girl, too. I’m talking about the grey-haired King Smirk-zymandias, last king of Bad Humor.”

“You might want to look in a mirror for that one.”

Ilia faked a scandalized gasp and laughed. “I deserved that. A roast for the road, eh?” She set down the cooler of travel snacks she was hauling to the ship and put her hands on her hips.

“And to defend the besmirched name of our good King Oz,” Blake said. She turned away from Ilia. “You know the motto: the fairest, the latest--”

“...the wisest, the racist,” Ilia finished with her, chuckling. “The White Fang should bring that one back, I like the rhythm. Feeling a bit sassy today, are we Belladonna?”

“Hey!” Blake snapped, beginning to laugh herself. “That’s Nightshade to you.”

Ilia waved her hand. “Alright, just checking to see if you remembered. Got your scroll yet?”

Blake reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the new black scroll. She opened it and swiped to the ID page. On the screen was an image of her face, and in bright blue letters “Dusk Nightshade, 17, Vale.”

She showed it to Ilia. “And I have the virus on the other one,” she added, patting her other pocket. “The mute one gave it to me yesterday.”

“Keep that hidden,” Ilia warned with abrupt seriousness. “That’s the worst possible way to have your cover blown.”

“Don’t worry,” Blake said. “I know just the place.”

Ilia nodded. “You better.”

She turned away. Blake knew that Ilia didn’t want her to see her face fall, but even in darkness, Blake would know what was happening in those eyes.

“Hey,” Blake called.

Ilia turned back around. “Yeah?”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Ilia blinked at her for a moment. She sighed.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, but she looked at the ground. Ilia walked over to where Blake sat. Blake scooched over to allow Ilia the room to sit down on the crate next to her. “I just… didn’t think you’d be so far away. From Forever Fall, I mean.”

Blake’s fingers curled. She looked to the sky.

“Me neither,” Blake said. “But…”

She trailed off. What she wanted to say felt wrong to even think, much less to admit out loud. She glanced over at Ilia.

She met her gaze. “It’s for the best?” Ilia finished.

Blake closed her eyes and sighed. Ilia always knew what she was thinking, for better or for worse.

“Just, don’t…”

Blake looked up. Ilia searched for words, eyebrows drawn together.

“Don’t forget about me, ‘kay?” She said it with a slight laugh that was free of amusement. “I like to think you’re not just leaving bad things behind.”

Blake stared at her. _What?_ She blinked in astonishment.

“Of course I don’t think that,” she said with disbelief. “I could never forget about you.”

Ilia looked at her with big, wet eyes. 

It hit Blake at that moment that she wasn’t going to see them again for possibly a very, very long time. She felt a crack form in her heart.

“I promise,” she said, voice splintering. “I’ll come back for you.”

She leaned forward and wrapped Ilia in a hug, which was eagerly accepted. Blake shuddered out a sigh as the newfound sadness in her heart swelled like a crashing wave, causing the fissures to lengthen and strain. She squeezed Ilia tighter. Ilia buried her face in her shoulder, shielded from the world by her dark hair.

Something clicked in Blake’s mind. She abruptly pulled out of the hug, despite a yelp of protest. “I have an idea,” she said.

She pulled Gambol Shroud off her back with a _shing_.

Ilia jerked back. “Uh, what?” she said, eyeing the blade nervously.

“Just so you know,” she told Ilia, “I am very grateful for this haircut.”

She turned her sword sideways and brought it towards her face.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on,” Ilia interjected, grabbing her arm. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do anything extreme,” Blake said.

She picked a strand of hair up off the top layer of her bangs, just barely off center to her right. Blake pulled it taught and twisted the end between her fingers. She slid Gambol Shroud underneath it, the edge resting at the midpoint down the strand. With a single saw of her blade, she severed the piece from her head. Ilia gasped.

Blake returned Gambol Shroud to its sheath. She brushed her hair back into place, running her fingers briskly through her bangs. The severed lock formed a cowlick that swooped sideways over her bangs.

“See?” Blake said. She flicked playfully at the single lock of hair on Ilia’s forehead. “Now we match.”

Ilia stared at her, incredulous. “What on Remnant did you do that for?” she laughed.

“Well,” Blake said, “now every time I look in the mirror, I’ll see that stray hair, and think of this moment.” She smiled at Ilia. “And I won’t forget you.”

Ilia’s eyes widened in surprise. She smiled back.

“You dork,” she teased. “Hey, can I keep that?”

Blake held up the severed hair still pinched between her fingers. “What, this?”

“Um, yeah,” Ilia said. Her freckles turned a rosy pink. “It’s some of my finest work, after all.”

Blake dropped the hair into Ilia’s open palm. Ilia produced a pin from her pocket and inserted the hair between the teeth. 

“Thanks,” Ilia said.

"Why do you want it?" Blake asked.

Ilia met her gaze with a smile. Her freckles lightened.

“Now I won’t forget you, either.”

Packing up the entirety of her belongings wasn’t an abnormal occurrence for Yang. The tribe broke camp and moved once or twice a season. As Raven’s daughter, she got her own tent and got to keep more possessions per move than any other tribesman would own in a lifetime. But every time they moved, it was her own responsibility to pack up her items and break down her tent. That was the tribe’s way of life, after all -- only looking after yourself.

Which was why Yang was surprised at the parting of her tent’s curtain behind her. She spun around and drew her sword, brandishing it at the intruder.

With a smack, the end of the blade jerked down and the hilt flew out of Yang’s hands. The sword had clattered to rest on the ground before her in an instant.

Raven regarded Yang with low eyelids. “Pathetic.”

She lowered her hand that had hit the blade and stepped into the tent, the curtain falling closed behind her.

Yang grimaced. She crouched, red eyes burning into Raven’s face. “What are you doing here?” She grabbed her sword off the floor. Finally breaking eye contact, she turned to locate the cleaning cloth somewhere in her bags.

“Is it so wrong of me to want to see you off?” her mother said.

Yang unzipped one of her bags and rustled through it. “I mean, for you, kinda.”

Yang couldn’t see the expression Raven was making, but it brought her a little satisfaction to imagine her jaw tightening in her mind’s eye.

“I wanted to give you something.”

Yang paused. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. She put her sword in her bag and turned around to face her mother. “What is it.”

Raven’s usual scowl twitched, her lips pressing slightly and her lower eyelids scrunching upwards. It lasted less than a second. If Yang had been anyone else, she would have missed the flash entirely. But Yang was her daughter, and her eyebrows raised with intrigue at her mother’s expression of hurt.

She let her face soften. It encouraged Raven to continue, despite the scowl that now hardened her features.

“I will be watching you with my Semblance and my power,” Raven said. Her eyes snapped to Yang’s. “Only as often as I feel like,” she added. “If an enemy attacks you, I won’t promise that I’ll be there.”

A familiar squeezing feeling churned in Yang’s stomach. She nodded. “I understand.”

Raven nodded back, pleased. It lasted only a moment before her face darkened. 

“But you won’t just be leaving with my blessings,” she said.

She tilted her head down and reached both hands up behind her head. They struggled with something for a moment. Then, as her hands pulled away, Raven’s greying hair fell around her face, released from its ponytail. Yang realized what she was doing and felt her lips gently part.

In Raven’s hand was the copper-colored bandana that had tied back her hair for as long as Yang could remember. The rusty color did not match the reds and blacks of her gear, yet was a part of her image all the same. Seeing her mother’s hair down now felt to Yang like waking up to a green sky -- adjacent to normal, yet frighteningly wrong. A similar feeling washed over Yang as she realized that Raven’s frown was not scornful, but somber. She turned her somber gaze to the cloth, cradling it close to her body.

“This was your father’s,” she said simply.

Yang’s eyes widened.

Her first thought:

_And she’s worn it for almost seventeen years?_

Whoever Yang’s father was, she knew Raven had loved him. Still loved him, even. It only made sense. She saw it in the distant looks whenever she even mentioned his existence. Like now, Yang noticed, as she stared down at the bandana with what she could only identify as remorse. 

And now her mother held it out towards her.

“May his spirit protect you,” Raven said.

Outwardly, she remained completely still, staring down at her mother’s outstretched hand. But internally, a maelstrom of reactions clashed together all at once in the thunderstorm of her mind, thoughts mangled by emotion striking at random like lightning.

She hadn't expected a gift, much less one with such power.

What Yang knew about her father was limited to unimportant trivia: she’d never learned his name, nor how her parents met, nor where he was from. But that made each scrap of knowledge she did possess more precious than any wealth of riches her tribe could plunder. She knew that he had yellow hair, a discovery that made her heart swell with some unfathomable happiness. She knew that he had blue eyes, which filled her heart with sorrow upon its revelation and still hit her with pangs of sadness whenever she passed her reflection.

And apparently, she now knew that he had a copper-colored bandana.

What was that going to do to her?

“Yang?”

“I-- I can’t take this,” Yang said quickly. She took a small step back. “I can’t.”

“Yang, your eyes,” Raven said.

Yang’s stare lept to Raven’s face. Her eyes were wide and unguarded. She gasped, suddenly understanding. “Are they…?”

She turned and snatched her sword out of her bag. She held the polished blade out in front of her and stiffened. She stared at her reflection.

Two purple eyes stared back.

“I…”

Violet eyes, the reckless fusion between blue and red, caught staring at themselves with profound sorrow. Neither red with horror nor blue with despair, but violet with an empty, resounding sorrow.

“Yang,” her mother called softly.

Her hands trembled as she slowly lowered the blade. Raven’s arm straightened, thrusting the cloth towards her. “Take it.”

Yang just stared.

Raven’s hand squeezed around it. “I’ve held onto it for too long. He would want you to have it. _Take it.”_

Yang stared. Her lilac eyes jumped from her mother's red eyes, to her hair, to her shoulder, to her hand. To the cloth.

She blinked. Her teeth ground against each other.

Red again.

She reached out and took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Weiss this chapter, but fret not -- she features prominently in the majority of next chapter!
> 
> I think my new posting schedule will be one chapter every weekend! That gives me plenty of time to write it, and you guys plenty of time to read it. Check my tumblr, thuskindlyshescatters, for updates or schedule changes!


	6. Introduction to Spycraft

The entrance hall of Haven Academy was less like an auditorium and more like a very boring living room. Rows upon rows of folding chairs had been set up in three sections across the beige carpet, and rows upon rows of first-year students were making quick work of filling them in. At the front of the hall was a makeshift presenters’ stage made out of creaking old risers, flanked by two hastily-erected speakers on either side. Behind the stage and in deep contrast with it loomed Haven Academy’s Statue of the Chained Spirit, which Blake was surprised to see somewhat hidden away behind the modern apparatus. As the antebellum symbol of Mistral’s greatness and the oldest piece of artwork to survive the iconoclasm of the Great War, one would think it would feature more prominently during orientation. She would go get a closer look at it after the presentation, Blake decided -- she wasn’t the type to pass up the chance to see masterpieces up-close.

Near the entrance of the hall stood an adult woman with dark hair that wore golden robes. Her arms were folded authoritatively as she cast a hardened stare at every student who passed her. Each time the doors opened for a new first-year to enter the hall, she repeated: “Seats are assigned in alphabetical order by last name. Find your section and seat number on the list and sit down.”

While many students seemed to obey the first command well enough, it appeared that few heeded the second; with the buzz of excitement in the air, very few people had taken their seats, instead roaming around to catch up with friends from prep school or talk to teachers they recognized. Huntsman that taught at the academies earned that status, after all.

Blake carefully avoided meeting the woman’s gaze as she walked past her and approached a folding table. Students crowded around it, all straining to catch a glimpse of their seat number. Blake took several moments to wait until a huge friend group departed and the crowd thinned, just enough for her to slide in and view the list.

She was surprised to find that the list was actually printed out on a sheet of paper. It was consistent with the rest of the technology in the hall -- not obsolete, but definitely aging. Her eyes scanned the simple four-column spreadsheet. She found the Bs towards the top and skimmed down. 

_Basil, Grover; Beech, Maya; Black, Mercury; Blue, Cressida; Branwen, Yang…_

_What?_

Her name was missing. 

Her once-over became a twice-over, her search intensifying with each name that was not her own. To her dismay, there were no Belladonnas anywhere on the spreadsheet, and none appeared when she scanned it a third time.

Her eyes dashed around. Had there been a mistake? Did Adam not transfer her credits correctly? Was she not accepted? What--

She blinked. She mentally smacked herself.

_You’re undercover, dumbass._

Her eyes scrolled down and found the Ns.

_Nightshade, Dusk._

Yep. There it was. Not hard to find at all. Section 2, row 4, seat 19.

Ilia would roll her eyes at her.

“Ugh, let me see that.”

A hand appeared in front of Blake, snatching the paper away from her.

“Hey!” she protested.

“See?” they said. “Look right below Schnee: it says Silver and Sustrai, right next to each other in the same row.”

Blake’s ears perked up, before she reminded herself that she wasn’t supposed to do that. _Schnee?_ It hadn’t occurred to her to scope out her target at orientation, but it wasn’t a bad idea. She turned to her right with the intent to take the paper back from--

She froze. 

The thief was the same green-haired agent that had stayed with the White Fang in Forever Fall not 24 hours ago. There was no doubt about it -- she was even wearing the same combat gear, without so much as a haircut to disguise her identity. She was instructing a much shorter girl in a red cape and pointing at the paper with a complete lack of discretion.

“I’ll go find our seats -- you go find Branwen’s and scope her out.”

“What?” The red girl complained. “But what do I do if she tries to talk to me?”

“Talk back,” the green one said.

The red one grumbled. “You are not the boss of me,” she said.

“Yeah, but I’m older,” the green girl teased. 

“It’s you.”

The green-haired girl paused in the middle of a breath. She turned around. When her eyes met Blake’s, her eyebrows shot up.

“It’s _you,”_ she echoed.

They both stared at each other. Something about the girl’s gaze made the hairs on the back of Blake’s neck stand. She knew that the same questions echoed through each other’s minds -- _what is she doing here? Do they have other agents here? Does anyone else recognize us?_

“Um, who is this?” the short girl asked.

The green-haired girl shot her a look. “Go find Branwen. I’ll deal with this.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed at her choice of words. _I’ll have something for you to “deal with,” all right._

The girl looked between the two of them, then nodded. She took the paper from the green girl and put it back on the table, which immediately caused a vortex of students to descend upon it. She disappeared into the swarm.

Blake surveyed the chattering crowd and gestured away from the table with a nod of her chin. “Let’s talk somewhere else.”

The green girl eyed her for a moment. She turned away and walked into the crowd. Blake followed her, pushing past people the girl had displaced in her wake.

They stopped by one of the wooden pillars that lined the walls. Blake glanced around, confirming that the passersby were out of earshot. Nobody seemed to pay them any mind. With a nod, she returned her gaze to the green-haired girl. She was a little taller than her, but did not loom. Rather, she leaned away from Blake, all weight on one leg with a hip popped. Her red eyes were narrowed and her arms were crossed. Blake couldn’t help but feel the same.

Blake initiated. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she responded. “Why aren’t you at Beacon?”

Blake’s glare soured. This clearly wasn’t her first rodeo. The agent had deflected her question with unwavering confidence; getting her to explain herself to Blake was going to be a challenge. She made her displeasure known to the girl by hardening her expression. _I’m not afraid of you, just annoyed._

“Let’s get on the same page,” she sneered. “I wasn’t informed that you’d be here. Is the rest of your gang here, too?” She nodded her head towards the table. “Was Little Red back there one of yours?”

She scoffed at the nickname. “Yeah, something like that,” the girl answered. “I’m not the leader though -- I don’t think you two have met. Both Crimson and Cinder were on the bullhead that came to pick us up from Forever Fall. They didn’t leave the ship, so the odds of you seeing each other were slim.”

Blake was taken aback by her honesty. Or maybe her honesty was meant to throw her off, or maybe she wanted Blake to feel a false sense of reassurance. Her surprise was replaced with suspicion. Based on naming alone, Blake assumed Crimson was the girl in the red cape, and therefore Cinder was the leader she had alluded to. Somehow, though, they’d avoided telling Blake or Ilia their names in Forever Fall. That was almost certainly intentional. She raised an eyebrow at the green-haired girl, considering another test of her honesty. “And your name is…?”

“Emerald,” she said. 

_Well, that checks out._

“I know who you are, obviously,” Emerald continued. “Surely you can’t be going by Belladonna here?”

Blake shook her head. “To anyone who asks, it’s Dusk Nightshade.”

Emerald snorted. “Cute.”

Blake glowered.

Emerald leaned in with a glance to the right. “Neo gave you the scroll, right?” she asked, lowering her voice. Blake thought for a moment -- the scroll with the virus on it, she assumed she meant. So the silent one was Neo. Again, Emerald submitted more helpful information that she didn’t need to tell her, yet she did. If this was meant to lull her into letting her guard down, she was dead wrong. If anything, it made her more skeptical of this mysterious band of agents. Blake nodded in response to her inquiry, but said nothing. 

Emerald’s eyes narrowed once again. “That job was supposed to be done in Vale, not here.”

“I have it, but the White Fang sent me here instead.”

“Why?”

It wasn’t curious -- it was a demand. 

Blake grasped her lie just as firmly. This part was the easy bit -- she had prepared this response completely in advance. She looked Emerald in the eye and squeezed her voice into an unintriguing monotone. “Criminal activity is less suspect in Mistral,” she said. “I might be able to bribe my way out if things go south.”

Emerald didn’t say or do anything, yet her stillness was volatile. Blake stood tall, braced against the tension as the precious seconds ticked by. Any moment now, Blake might discover what happens when the lie doesn’t stick.

But in a stroke of luck, Emerald’s face completely flipped, a friendly smirk replacing the stony glare. Her hands dropped to her sides as she pulled away from Blake, satisfied. 

“Well, I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Emerald said. “I guess I’ll see you around, kitty cat,” she quipped as she turned to strut away.

Blake’s hand shot up to her bow. She adjusted it quickly, checking for any sign of exposure under her disguise.

It was fine, she thought. She was fine.

Her hand lowered. When she looked up, Emerald was gone.

Blake sighed. She suddenly felt fatigued; a heaviness had crept into her muscles where the tension had left, and it made her yawn. She let her shoulder hit the wall and leaned against it, crossing her arms as she thought. 

That encounter had provided no information to either confirm or disprove Blake’s distrust of their presence -- whoever they were. That question bothered Blake most of all. Moreover, she had to continue to wonder why they were here and who they answered to. How they felt so confident without disguises, standing out in the open. What part they had to play in what the White Fang was planning.

Her arms crossed tighter over her chest.

Well, at least now she knew who all the players were. Emerald now knew that Blake was the White Fang agent, and she predicted that her friends would soon know too -- Crimson, Cinder, Neo, and whatshisface. The one Ilia disliked. 

Blake frowned at that.

That can’t distract her now, she told herself. She tugged her jacket down firmly on her shoulders. She had two missions before her: one that was known to Emerald’s colorful group of agents loyal to Adam’s mysterious contact, and one that was known only to those waiting for her in Forever Fall. Who she hoped were waiting for her.

She shook the thought out of her head. _Focus._ She adjusted her coat again, flattening the lapels. It wasn’t safe to be seen around the heiress right now, not when she was seated so close to Emerald and her companion. It would jeopardize her ulterior goal if they were to become suspicious. The best thing for her to do right now would be to find her seat and wait for a better opportunity to gather information.

A thought occurred to her. She looked towards the front of the room.

Or, before she did that, she could go appreciate some art.

A small smile formed on her face. She pushed off the wall and began walking towards the Statue of the Chained Spirit.

Crimson loved Salem. She did.

Ordinary people would shiver at the mere sight of her unnatural features, but not Crimson. She had lived with her for so long that she sometimes forgot that her freakish veins and paradoxical youth were more than a simple skin condition. She had some kind of daughterly affection for her, too; she had been raised by Salem, more or less, and she’d done a pretty okay job for what Crimson assumed was her first time parenting. (Because she really couldn’t imagine Salem with kids of her own. She just couldn’t. She didn’t want to contemplate someone looking at her master and thinking _she_ was the ideal partner.)

(Maybe Tyrian would.)

(Tyrian was super weird, though.)

So, yes, Crimson loved Salem -- she really did.

But sometimes her vague speech patterns just drove her up the god-forsaken wall.

 _“It will take a few days to heal,”_ she’d told her, or at least, Crimson thought she’d told her. No, that was just what her mind’s Salem Vagueness Translator, fine-tuned through years of trusted operation, had told her. Crimson knew she’d _actually_ said something like, _“fear not, young Crimson, for though your new gift brings you suffering, so do all such boons. Once you have accepted it as a part of you, the pain you feel will trouble you no longer.”_ Or some such nonsense.

Crimson wished she’d then added, “and take two tablets of antihistamine by mouth every eight hours until swelling subsides.”

She loved Salem. She really, truly, did. And she understood that she probably just spoke how people used to back when she was growing up Gods-know-how-long ago.

But how was she supposed to kill anyone with this constant eye-rubbing in the way?

There was now burning in both her eyes, and not only did it give her a killer headache and serious red-eye, but the moisture in her right eye also made it hard to see without wiping it every ten seconds. It had taken a painful 9-hour flight of misery, a restless night of non-stop rubbing, and a full morning of lamenting her condition before Neo had grabbed her face, yanked her jaw open, and shoved two pills into her mouth.

In fairness: a) she deserved it, and b) the medicine worked. Now it was only the wetness in her eye that she had to deal with, and Cinder’s passive-aggressive scoffs of annoyance.

She wished she owned a handkerchief. Her leather gloves didn’t absorb the water well, and it probably wasn’t good for the material. The only free cloth she had on her was Parallax’s cleaning rag, which she was putting _nowhere_ near her facial orifices, thank you very much. If she was on this mission with someone like Watts, he’d have lent her a handkerchief even before she’d noticed the irritation yesterday morning. Unfortunately, her current company knew no such civility; not even Neo, whose dainty appearance would have indicated otherwise. Or maybe she just didn’t offer one because she liked to watch her suffer. Either way, acquiring a handkerchief was off the table. She carried around first-aid, but she didn’t need to treat a bullet wound -- she just needed a way to wipe her stupid eye! She resorted to using her cape as she scanned the room for a box of tissues from her seat.

Well, not _her_ seat. Her seat was in section 3, row 2, seat 5, marked with a little paper placard that declared it was hers. She currently sat in section 1, row 8, seat 17, in the B section of the alphabet.

She rocked idly on the back legs of her chair, scrubbing at her eye for the umpteenth time. The chair creaked dangerously. It occurred to her that the Spring Maiden may have a temper, and that breaking the chair may not be the best way to make introductions, but she shrugged it off. If she tried to kill her, it would only make the assassination more convenient. She made that assumption based on previous experience; Cinder would try to kill her if Crimson broke her chair. It’s happened before.

“Um, excuse me,” said a voice.

Crimson stopped rubbing her eye. She squinted up to her right.

A girl stood above her with her hands placed firmly on her hips. Crimson blinked up at her. Her hair was long like Branwen’s, but not a glowing yellow; instead it was plain white and tied back into an off-center ponytail. _Not Branwen, then._

“Yes?” Crimson said.

“I believe you’re sitting in the wrong seat.”

Crimson blinked again. _Why does she care?_

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I’m waiting for someone.”

The girl _humph_ ed, shifting her weight to one foot impatiently. “Well so am I. So, I’d appreciate it if you moved a few seats further down the row, please.”

Crimson cocked an eyebrow at her. “What? I got here first, _you_ go somewhere else.”

That statement elicited a much stronger reaction than Crimson was expecting. “ _Ex_ -CUSE me?” the girl shrilly objected.

Crimson returned the front legs of the chair to the ground and held up her hands. “Whoa, okay, it’s not a big deal.”

 _“I_ am not the one who made it a big deal,” the girl exclaimed. “I gave you a perfectly good chance to move away before you exacerbated the situation.”

 _Who does this girl think she is?_ Crimson wondered. She rubbed her eye. De-escalating situations like this was not her forte.

 _Alright then,_ she thought, _what would Cinder do?_

_Threaten her life._

_Okay, not the best option._

_But -- no, yeah, Emerald would too._

_And Mercury. And Salem. And pretty much everyone else I know on a personal level._

_I may be lacking in positive role models._

“Okay, look, Princess,” she said, eyeing the girl’s little crown and lacy dress, “the person I’m waiting for is probably gonna be here any minute. Just sit down nearby and we can all forget that this happened.”

Somehow, that did the opposite of what Crimson intended. The girl clenched her fists at her sides. _“Princess?!”_ she said. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

Crimson squinted at the girl’s face, rubbed her eye, and squinted again. “Mmm, nope.”

She gasped and grabbed her side like she’d been stabbed. She gawked. “Surely you must be joking.”

Crimson raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think I am?”

“Where did you grow up? Outside the Kingdoms, under a rock?”

“Both of those are correct, yeah.”

“Why, the nerve of-- ugh!” she said, turning away in exasperation, and for a hopeful second Crimson thought she was going to go away. But then, she whipped back around and pointed a finger in Crimson’s face.

“Who are you waiting for? I’ll tell them all about this ridiculous behavior of yours.”

Crimson thought about everything she knew about bandits, and truthfully replied, “I don’t think she’ll care.”

The girl growled, less like a wolf and more like a chihuahua. “Well, the person who _I’m_ waiting for will absolutely care very much that you’re sitting in her chair.”

Crimson looked down at the chair and furrowed her brow. _“This_ chair?”

“Of all the stupid questions -- yes, that chair!”

She checked the number on the seat. “You mean seat 17 in row 8 of section 1? This chair?”

The girl paused, her tirade interrupted by the change in tone. “Uh, yes.”

Crimson stared at her. “This is where my person is sitting.”

She blinked. “Well, you’re obviously wrong. This is where _my_ person is sitting.”

“Who are you waiting for?”

“I owe you nothing.”

“I’m waiting for Yang Branwen, is that who you’re waiting for?”

The girl froze and stared. Her mouth fell open, but no words came out. A moment of blissful silence ticked by.

Crimson felt a pang of… something. An unfamiliar sensation; a heavy feeling in her stomach, like a soft blow to her solar plexus. It made her feel like she wanted to hide. Puzzlingly, it was a contradictory response to her most recent thought: she had just realized that she was going to have to murder this girl’s friend. 

And, well, that sucked for her.

Although... she was kind of a bitch.

...Yeah, she could live with it.

“Why in the world are you waiting for Yang Branwen?” the girl finally managed to ask, mouth still agape.

The heavy feeling had lifted, and Crimson took a moment to chew on this question. On some level, she knew it was coming, but she hadn’t really thought to prepare an answer in advance. Since the truth was obviously not an option, Crimson resorted to her least favorite criminal activity: serial lying. Much better suited to a smooth-talker like Cinder -- not so much for a long-range assassin whose job was to _avoid_ other people. Now, it was true that she’d wormed her way out of plenty of interrogations before. She’d even developed a methodology for it. But that didn’t mean she was good at it. 

Her methods followed thusly. Rule one: anything you can avoid, avoid it. Rule two: anything you can deny, deny it. 

She knew they weren’t very good rules, but she lived by them nonetheless. 

She leaned back in her (Branwen’s) chair. 

Rule one. “I’ve just been wondering the same thing.”

“Are you her friend?”

Rule two. “No.”

 _Uh oh._ Case in point.

The girl raised an eyebrow. “Then why do you know her?”

Rule three: simple lies are better than complex ones.

“We’re sisters.”

Crimson kicked herself. Why did she have these confounded rules anyways? Sisters? What? That was very obviously a terrible lie, and Crimson knew it right away. The hair color, the eye color, the height, the skin tone, the names — none of it added up. She should have said cousins. That was simpler, more probable and arguably most believable out of any familial relationship they could possibly have. Sisters. Idiot.

“You are obviously _not,”_ the girl clucked. “I can tell that just by looking at you.”

Rule four: when you’re not doing well, turn the tables on them.

“Oh yeah?” Crimson said. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Well, you technically didn’t ask.”

_Yikes._

She cleared her throat and went in for another pass. She didn’t like the smirk that had sprouted on the girl’s face. “Well, how do _you_ know Yang Branwen?”

The girl hesitated, and the smirk vanished. Crimson would consider that a victory. Her eyes darted around as if searching for her words in an invisible dictionary. “We’re… associated… through mutual… associates.”

Well, at least Crimson had experience at all. She bit back a laugh. “Is that ‘associate’ the paper by the entrance?” she said.

“No!” the girl squeaked. “I was sent all the way from Atlas just to meet her.” Giving Crimson no time to process that, she stomped her foot and continued, stammering. “A-and at least I’m not pretending to be her sister. Why would you say such a thing? You can’t both be first-years if you’re sisters!”

Crimson wasn’t sure of exactly how old she was, but that still didn’t check out. Back to rule four. “What if we were twins?”

“You look too dissimilar.”

“Fraternal.”

“Different last names.”

“You don’t know my name...?”

“You admitted that you’re sitting in a chair that’s not yours.”

“Ooh, clever. Half-sisters then.”

“On what side?”

“Uh, father’s, obviously.”

“Shouldn’t you still have the same last name?”

“Not if we took our mothers’.”

She sighed. “You’re impossible.”

Crimson giggled. “Impossible to move out of this seat, yeah.”

“Oh, you _insufferable_ little red--!”

“Ladies, please,” said a voice, “there’s no need to fight over me.”

Both girls looked up. Crimson wiped her eye.

Now _that_ was the Spring Maiden.

The Seer’s mirage couldn’t do that hair justice. It wasn’t just bright yellow -- it seemed like it was actually glowing, just seconds away from catching fire. Her eyes, which Crimson hadn’t been able to see from the angle of the recording, were a violent red, and radiated a similar incandescence. Everything about her attire screamed “bandit,” making Crimson instinctively move to hover her hand near Parallax.

“Yang!” the girl said. Crimson glanced at her.

“Hey there, girl I’ve never met!” Yang responded cheerfully.

The girl blinked, and Crimson cringed, thinking for sure that she was about to leap into another high-pitched outburst. Instead, she smiled nervously and placed her hands on her skirt.

“Oh, I apologize for my forwardness.” The girl did a little nod-bow-squat thing that she somehow made seem elegant. “My name is Weiss Schnee.” She posed, with her hands folded in front of her and her head cocked expectantly.

Yang stared at her, turning her own head to the side. “Uh… yeah, hi.”

Weiss sagged. “Seriously?” she muttered.

But she did not screech and flap her arms like she had at Crimson’s failure of recognition, and that made Crimson even more suspicious. She had presumed Weiss to be Yang’s friend or an acquaintance of some sort, not a total stranger.

She rubbed her eye before returning her gaze to Yang. The girl was watching Crimson with the same hesitation, but Crimson detected more gears turning behind her eyes. She frowned at Crimson.

“Do I know you?” Yang asked.

“Nope,” she admitted. “I’m Crimson.”

Yang blinked thoughtfully at her for a few more moments. Her hand hung at her side, playing with an orange rag tied around her thigh.

Yang shrugged. “Yeah, I figured. Nice to meet you Crimson, I’m Yang!” Her hand departed from the cloth and swung up to gesture to herself with her thumb. “I like your eyepatch.”

Crimson rubbed her right eye again and moved her hand across the fabric covering her left. “Thanks,” she said. “Cool, uh…” Her eyes caught on the shiniest thing she could find. “...sword.”

“Yes, I also admire its craftsmanship, Yang,” Weiss interjected, taking a step forward. “I am a swordsman myself -- my weapon of choice is a rapier. Yours is a scimitar, if I’m not mistaken?”

“You are,” Crimson corrected. “It’s an odachi, probably lightweight Mistralian steel, about fifteen to twenty years old and waaaay over-sharpened and over-polished, are you trying to shred that thing to nothing?”

The other girls stared at her. Yang grinned.

Crimson flushed and rubbed her eye. “Uh, sorry for interrupting, I’m just… kind of a dork when it comes to weapons.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Yang said. “Is that the kind of thing you learn at the prep academies?”

Crimson shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t go to one. Most of it I learned from…”

_From, uh, well, my MIA rogue scientist mentor who trained me and taught me almost everything I know about weaponry._

“...my dad.”

For some reason, it felt right to say.

Yang looked down at her right leg, presumably at the silver blade that hung unsheathed from her belt. A flash of something pensive ran across Yang’s face, but it was quickly replaced with a warm smile. “Well, I don’t know what any of that meant, but I’m sure you’re better than me! You seem like you know a great deal.” 

That flipped some switch inside her. Crimson head felt light and giddy. She returned the smile, widely and brightly. 

“I barely use this thing,” Yang continued, “so you’re probably right about over-sharpening. Personally, I prefer good old-fashioned fisticuffs.” She held up her fists and clashed them together. The battered gauntlets on her forearms sent sparks flying as they grated against each other.

Crimson _ooh_ ed. Weiss jumped, eyeing the gauntlets with caution.

“Yes, they’re… certainly traditional,” she winced.

“Are they hand-me-downs?” Crimson asked, wiping her eye to inspect them. “That metal’s at least fifty years old, by the looks of it.”

Yang held out her arm to Crimson. “Yeah, they were my grandmother’s once. I made some modifications to them myself, though — check this out.”

She pulled her elbow back and turned her wrist sharply. A dual-edged blade shot forward from its concealed position above her wrist, extending about eight inches past her knuckles.

Weiss yelped, drawing her hands up to her chest. “Oh my.”

Crimson’s eye widened with excitement. “Ooh, it transforms!” She leaned closer, pondering its design. “I see. So it’s like a retractable dagger version of a _pata.”_ She sat back, smiling. “I like it -- not many people have an appreciation for the classics these days. Look, my weapon’s kind of old-school too.” She grabbed Parallax from under her cape and whipped it out with a flourish, posing with the butt of the rifle on her shoulder.

Weiss threw her hands up in front of her face. “Careful where you point that thing!” At the same time, Yang said, “whoa, awesome! Is that a sniper rifle?”

“It’s also equipped with a customizable, recoil-powered javelin-slash-bayonet.”

“Huh?”

She cocked it. “It’s also a sword.”

Yang made a thumbs-up. “Nice.”

Weiss sighed and ran a hand down her face. “I give up.”

Both girls looked away from their weapons and up at her. “Aw, so soon?” Yang said with a smirk. “We’ve only just started becoming friends.”

She crossed her arms and gave each of them a haughty glare. “A pleasure making your acquaintance, then. I’m going to go sit down.”

She spun on her heel. Her white ponytail swung out behind her, nearly catching Yang in its wide radius. She gave Crimson one last icy look and marched away.

Crimson stuck out her tongue at her back. “Killjoy.”

“A little bit,” Yang agreed. “Not a bad idea though. Do you mind?”

Crimson blinked up at her, then looked down at her seat and gasped. “Oh! Yeah, sure, I’d… better be off anyway.” She stood up quickly, sliding Parallax back under her cape. She gestured to the chair. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” Yang said. Crimson turned around and planned for a swift departure. But after a few steps, Yang called, “Crimson.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

Crimson blinked. “Yeah, why…?”

She trailed off. _Oh._

She reached up and wiped her eye, moisture collecting on the back of her hand. “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” she said. “I’m not crying, my eye’s just been acting up recently.”

Yang chuckled, looking down. “Spring allergies, huh?”

Crimson’s eye immediately narrowed.

_Spring._

The friendly pretenses dropped. 

Her gaze raced across her target in the same manner as so many engagements before. Most tried to distract her with words -- all of them failed. But Yang’s call-out was new. Did she figure out who she was? Her silver eye’s stare tightened on her target’s face, zipping between her features. Was this a warning to stay away? 

Yang’s red eyes were sincere. Her kind smile was genuine.

Her stare weakened. 

That foreign, heavy feeling in Crimson’s stomach returned as she looked upon Yang’s earnest expression, so different from what Crimson had been trained to expect. She didn’t care for that feeling, nor did she understand it. But it was there nonetheless, just as pervasive and immutable as the aching in both her eyes.

She ripped her gaze away. _Spring allergies?_

“Something like that,” she said.

She left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weiss and Crimson: *go to sit down* *discover seats are next to each other* "OH, COME ON!"
> 
> How many references to canon can I make in one chapter? See if you can find them all! (There are 6 references from Volume One, one reference from Volumes Three and Five, and one from the Yellow Trailer!)


	7. Initiation Initiates

Blake would be the first to admit that she wasn’t much of a frontiersman. 

Menagerie was mostly wilderness, but she had grown up in Kuokuana: the one patch of dry land that wasn’t. Since she had started living with the White Fang in Forever Fall, her lifestyle had become much more exposed to the elements, yet was surprisingly lacking in outdoor excursions aside from the occasional heist. Her footwear suggested as much. At the moment, the square three-inch heels of her boots were stuck firmly in the muddy ground of the riverbank. She envisioned having to use the blunt end of Gambol Shroud later to dig out pine needles and clods of dirt from the grooves in the sole. She cringed.

The other first-years around her looked similarly displeased at the situation. The roaring of the raging whitewater before them drowned out almost all noise and splashed a chilly spray onto unsuspecting students standing at its edge. Where Blake had been instructed to stand, the river was only about twenty feet wide, but it was definitely no babbling brook. She pitied those that would have to cross downstream of her, where the water only grew more torrential.

They had received instructions from the headmaster minutes prior via scroll. Their objective was to cross this branch of Matsu River, hike westward to the low peak of Little Nichibotsu, retrieve a “Relic” from the mountain temple, and return to this side of the river before sundown. Their _evaluation,_ however, would be based on their “ability to cooperate with others around you.” Blake assumed that this meant they were forming teams today, as rumor had it. That held the unfortunate implication that, if she needed to end up on a team with Weiss Schnee, she would have to work _with_ her in their trek across the West Valley. She would have to grit her teeth through a whole day of muddying her boots with the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company; a whole day of hiking through the forest and listening to her complain, being forced to help her if they encounter Grimm, and not being allowed to let them rip her to shreds, as fun and easy as that would be. Ilia would laugh at her, seeing her being all buddy-buddy with a Schnee. Not laughing at her misery, but at her annoyance at those little things.

 _A necessary sacrifice,_ Ilia would remind her. That’s all this was -- minorly inconveniencing herself to move the Faunus closer to justice.

Blake reluctantly agreed.

She checked her scroll. Three more minutes until showtime. Her game plan was to swing across the river with Gambol Shroud, locate her target, and -- most importantly -- take control of the situation. There was no way Blake would allow a Schnee to boss her around all day. She might as well murder her then and there. It occurred to her that her task would be even more painless if she found her target now, when they were all nicely lined up. The more time she spent wandering through the woods, the more irritable and inclined towards homicide she would become. She looked down the river and scanned the students on the shoreline for signature white hair.

The first student immediately to her left was obviously not Weiss Schnee — she would have noticed by now anyways — because, first of all, he was a boy, with electric blue hair so unlike the color of snow. Furthermore, he seemed petrified. He stood ten feet to Blake’s left as stiff as a board, and stared at the river with wide eyes and a downturned mouth. Blake leaned forward to see past him farther down the riverbank. The line of students continued, fading into more and more non-white heads, some with spiky blonde hair, some with shaggy grey bangs, one with the yellowest hair Blake had ever laid eyes upon… but the line faded around the riverbend without a white strand in sight.

Blake stood back, resigned. Well, if there was one thing Ilia was right about, it was that humans really do identify each other by hair.

She turned her head to look upstream. To her right stood a girl with ashy grey hair, amber eyes, and apparent boredom; she idly inspected her red-polished nails without demonstrating any kind of real interest. Beyond her, a similar array of colorful heads marked ten-foot intervals along the riverbank, but none were obviously the fairest of them all that Blake sought.

She looked forward and pondered the situation, chewing on the inside of her lip. If Weiss Schnee wasn’t crossing within a hundred feet of her, it would be difficult to find her in the forest before someone else did. The best she could do at this point was probably get ahead of the crowd and search the shoreline from a new angle.

“Attention, students!” a feminine voice suddenly boomed out of the trees. Blake jumped, clenched her ears into place, and turned around. The trees were still.

The voice continued from unseen projectors. “You have thirty seconds until you begin,” it instructed. “Remember your task and your training. Your professors will be watching, but we will not intervene.”

Blake turned back to the river. She grabbed Gambol Shroud off her back. A chorus of mechanical clicking and scrapes of metal echoed down the river as other students had the same idea. A long moment later, the voice in the trees cleared her throat.

“Ten!” she declared.

A switch flipped inside her. Blake’s eyes were suddenly narrowed, her brain thumping like it had its own heartbeat in her head, her intellect widening like a camera shutter. The scenery became a map tacked inside her forehead; her surroundings were labeled _target, obstacle, enemy, ally_ in bright yellow tags behind her eyes.

Across the river was an old tree. One of its sturdy boughs extended over the water.

“Nine!”

Gambol Shroud’s ribbon was about twenty-five feet long. The thickest part of the branch was twenty feet away.

“Eight!”

She jerked her sword upwards and the blade folded in two. The pistol position created a hook that would easily grab the branch with the right throw.

“Seven!”

Fortunately, Blake was a great pitcher.

“Six!”

She’d swing across and then look for that white hair. Where would the target cross? _Right or left? Ahead or behind?_

“Five!”

Her eyes swiveled like owl heads. No white hair to her right. None to her left. 

“Four!”

Back to front, focus on that branch. She’ll deal with that when she crosses.

“Three!”

The branch rendered in her brain. Like a camera pulling into focus, she could now see everything, from the water pumping through the leaves to the termites tunneling in the bark. Her heel dug further into the ground.

“Two!”

Her finger slid up the trigger.

“One!”

She tensed and sucked in a breath.

“BEGIN!”

There was an explosion of noise as dozens of students launched themselves forward all at once. She squeezed the trigger and hurled Gambol Shroud towards the branch with a _BANG._ It slashed through the air and embedded into the wood, splinters flying off the branch. Her heels ripped out of the muddy ground with one! two! three steps and a leap. Her legs folded towards her chest and her body was suspended over the crashing water. She grabbed the ribbon with her other hand and pulled as hard as she could, yanking herself towards the shore. She let the ground hurtle towards her, squeezed her eyes, tucked her chin, and rolled to a stop on the damp ground.

Blake stood and brushed her hair out of her face. Her brain buzzed like it was filled with electric static. It could only process the vacant chant of _white hair, white hair, white hair…_

Only a few students remained on the other side. A navy blue ponytail, spiky blonde scruff. That poor boy with electric blue hair that had stood to her left remained there, still stiff as a board, staring at the rushing water. Feelings began to return to her brain, dull and unimportant things like pangs of pity.

And then disappointment. And frustration. And annoyance at her luck. The feelings became vivid. No Schnees within a hundred feet of her -- for the first time in her life, that was a problem. Plenty of humans, but not a Schnee worth half a damn.

Her eyes swept the shoreline one last time. The spiky blonde hair had moved -- its owner had approached the blue-haired boy. The blonde put his hands on his hips and looked out across the river. 

Their eyes met.

Her first instinct was to pretend not to notice. Her brain was still in overdrive, her eyes darted thoughtlessly -- whoops, his shirt’s open, somewhere else -- and caught on a movement, something moving behind him, a…

...Tail?

It uncurled slowly, peeking out from behind his leg like a nervous child. It was the same color as his hair, prehensile, fairly large in proportion to his body… Its appearance broke through the static in her brain, prodding something deeper. Blake guessed it was a wildcat or monkey tail.

_It’s rude to stare._

Her eyes shot back up to his face and her thoughts lost coherence again. There was another Faunus in her class. There was another like her! No Schnees and a Faunus! How did she feel about that? 

His eyes were on her, but above her eyes, almost looking over the top of her head with careful consideration.

His eyebrows raised. He met her eyes again. He smirked.

He _winked._

His tail retreated behind his body and he turned back to his companion. He said something to him, like he was picking up the same conversation.

She was frozen.

_Did he know?_

Just a friendly wink, she prayed, as more thoughts came swirling in like the floss in a cotton candy machine. He didn’t see her ears. He was… what was he doing, being nice? Flirtatious, even? But not… not... 

She turned around as if it would give her privacy and reached up to her bow. She tugged it up over the fuzzy peaks of her ears, pulled it down to touch the hair on her head, wiggled the knot in the center to make sure it was secure -- but no, her ears hadn’t been exposed. The bow was a bit crooked, but still concealed them in their entirety.

Her hands dropped to her sides. She sighed, and some of the nerves slipped out with it.

She glanced over her shoulder. The Faunus boy was still talking with his friend, without so much of a nod towards Blake.

She huffed. _Well. Good,_ she thought. _I didn’t blow my cover. That’s what matters. He would have just slowed me down anyways._

She still gazed across the river.

She blinked. Slowed her down...? What had she been doing? 

_The heiress!_ Right, yes, she had a job to do. And she’d better go do it. No winking was going to slow _her_ down. 

She yanked at her bow again and turned to walk into the forest. Regrettably, there was mud caked on her boots.

“Hellooooo?”

A bird in the tree next to her startled. Yang watched as it took off in a flurry of wingbeats. The tree stilled and the world returned to silence.

She drew in a deep breath and hollered. “HELLOOOOO?”

It didn’t even echo. The silence ate it up.

Yang kicked a root. The branches barely shivered.

“Goddamnit!” Yang exclaimed. “Is ANYONE out there?”

Silence responded.

“Ugh,” she growled. She dragged her feet into walking again, due West like she’d been going for the past however-long without incident. If she had to guess, she’d already been walking for maybe forty-five minutes, two-point-something miles at her pace. Without the sun, though, there was no way of knowing. She was known to be impatient, though; maybe she’d only been walking for ten minutes and it just felt like forever. 

The ground was now on a noticeable angle, so at least she’d made _some_ headway. The roots of the trees a hundred feet ahead of her were at eye level. Yang would agree that Little Nichibotsu was a small mountain -- she’s had to hike Big Nichibotsu before, with a tent on her back -- but that made it no less grueling. 

Although, it wasn’t exactly the hiking that bothered her. It was more the sore lack of company.

Usually when she traveled stretches like this alone, she had her bike. A trek up this mountain on her dear Cicada would take less than twenty minutes, depending on the trail. When she would hike through the woods, she would at least have Kestrel to crack jokes with, if not a whole group: a scouting party, a raiding party, a hunting party… Yang knew as well as any tribesman that the woods were no place to wander all by your lonesome for too long.

“Hellooooo,” she called once again, knowing it was in vain. The West Valley was vast. At this rate, she wouldn’t meet up with someone until she reached the peak and was grabbing a Relic.

 _A Relic._ Boy, that sure did dampen her spirits quick. She clenched her jaw. _Ozpin, you son of a bitch. Was this little exercise your idea? Training kids to die trying to get Relics or Maidens or whatever it is you want?_

Her fists curled at her side. She wanted to think about something else. About Kestrel, or being on a hunting party, or just being away from her mother and her dark omens. Raven didn’t speak kindly of the academies. In a way, Yang knew she was playing right into Ozpin’s little game -- handing the power of the Spring Maiden right over to him and his followers.

 _Think about something else,_ she began to think, but it got seized halfway up, garbled into an imitation of her mother’s hollow, creaking voice. _I won’t be taken that easily,_ she spat. _You can’t have my life like your other pawns. I’m not yours to sacrifice like them, like Qrow…!_

With a sound like shrieking glass, Yang was blown forward by a riptide of wind. She rolled to her feet and whipped around to face a reasonably sized Nevermore, with a wingspan of about ten feet, a beak the size of a horse’s head. It’s unseeing eyes flared as it screeched again, bellowing that unearthly howl directly towards her. It ripped its talons out of the ground and -- _crap,_ Yang thought, _it’s going to take off, I don’t have long range, I better_ \-- it beat its wings. Yang had braced herself and stayed rooted in place against the gust of air. With another flap of its wings, it lunged towards her, piercing the air with fearsome speed. She threw her wrist behind her as she dropped to a crouch. She felt the blade lock into place, and as it overshot her head, she punched skyward, carving a gash down its belly. It dropped out of flight. Its wings scrunched inward, squealing in pain as it tumbled to rest on the ground. 

Yang leapt to her feet and engaged her other gauntlet. She watched the Nevermore from between her fists, sidestepping slowly as she began to circle the beast.

The Nevermore’s limbs were drawn in. The black mass huddled on the ground, shivering, croaking miserably. A telltale plume of smoke rose from its center. Within a few minutes, it would disintegrate.

Yang put her hands at her sides. No reason to risk getting closer to deal a killing blow. If there was one flaw in her training that she was acutely aware of, it was her inexperience with reliable ranged weaponry. She began walking westward again, steering clear of the shuddering mass.

Yang scanned the treeline. The only movement as far as she could see in any direction was the shivering of her crumpled foe. She sighed. Somehow, her little tussle hadn’t attracted a single other student to her location. She didn’t want to change her course, but it was starting to get too quiet for her. Any company was better than this eerie emptiness.

Though, naturally, she had her preferences. To be frank, her tribe made more enemies than it did allies. Raiding settlements for resources unprocurable in the wild was an unfortunate necessity in their way of life. It wouldn’t surprise her if there were students in this very forest who would love nothing more than to take revenge on the Branwen tribe for raiding their village or looting their farmland. She was grateful that the first peer she had met here was someone who seemed to have no knowledge of her tribe or Animan culture. Her gauntlets were a dead giveaway that she was a “bandit,” but that girl, Crimson, had seemed more interested in their craftsmanship than anything else. On the other hand, she was also grateful that she had yet to meet anyone who’d indicated their awareness of the Spring Maiden, but nevertheless, she’d keep her eyes peeled; enemies of the tribe were numerous and avoidable, but enemies of the Spring Maiden were few and not so easily spotted. If she were to run into anyone in this forest, she would prefer Crimson over any native Animan or prospective Maiden hunter.

The Nevermore cawed and she whirled around, fists at the ready.

It had dragged itself a few feet towards her while her back was turned. Yang still stood a safe dozen-or-so feet away, but she marveled at the fact that it was still trying. 

“Dude, you’re dying,” she told the Grimm. “Give it up.”

It squawked weakly. Its yellow eyes stared at her, ruthless and unblinking.

She held up her fists. “Don’t make me put you out of your misery.”

It squawked again, eyes shining.

Yang put her hands down and regarded it. How would she do this? No ranged weapons, so… throw something at it? Tossing a rock probably wouldn’t do much good, unless the rock was moving at the speed of sound.

_Or…_

And a voice in her head immediately shouted her down. _No._

 _But look around!_ she told herself. She even gestured, presenting the utter absence of people in her surroundings to an imaginary audience. _If I could just…_

 _You would be discovered,_ the voice said. _There might be an assassin at this school who’s just begging to see you use it so they can come kill you, is that what you want?_

_Obviously not, but--_

_Then don’t. Walk away._

Yang pouted. She gave one last reluctant glance at the Nevermore on the ground. It croaked pathetically, trying with all its strength to pull itself towards her.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said. “Can’t.”

She turned around and marched away.

Her boots dragged. 

She stopped.

She tilted her head to the sky. “SERIOUSLY?” 

She turned back to the Nevermore and glared at it. A flash of light and a thundering _CRACK-OOM_ later, there was nothing left before her but steam rising from the ground and a quiet sizzling.

Yang huffed and faced westward once more. “What was I thinking?” she muttered. With a flick of her elbow, the blades on her gauntlets retracted.

She laced her fingers together on the back of her neck and let her arms hang there, loose and heavy. She resumed her ascent up the mountain. Occasionally, she would repeat, “what was I thinking?” only loud enough for herself to hear.

Her gaze magnetized towards a flash of light caught in the corner of her eye. She pivoted Parallax enough to just barely capture it in the crosshairs -- a twinkle, then gone. She peered through her scope with utter stillness, tense but relaxed, fixated on that spot in the forest. She breathed slowly.

_One._

_Two._

Thunder rumbled.

Crimson lowered her rifle. She wiped her eye and squinted between the leaves. Her target was heading West, currently located about two miles away from her perch in the treetops, as the crow flies.

She smirked.

_Gotcha._

Her boots were muddy. Her toes ached. There were pine needles stuck in her ponytail from her brief battle earlier, and there was tree sap stuck onto her dress. Yet Weiss Schnee, dirtier than she had ever been in her life, blessed her good fortune.

She ran southwest, flying through the forest as quickly as she could. She cast Glyphs to boost her along, when necessary (to get her over logs) or just when fun (to slide along them). If the mission file was accurate, that thunderbolt out of a clear sky could only have been caused by Yang Branwen herself. Yang was probably heading west, which meant that Weiss had to cut across the valley in order to intercept her. It was a tricky angle -- one foot fell higher on the slope than the other -- but she no longer cared, as long as she kept her footing. In fact, she felt a confusing sort of giddiness. Those fantastical, foolish novels she had read growing up about village children, who ran and played and adventured in the woods behind their houses suddenly became so much more tangible to her. That same childish exhilaration was propelling her forward, making _her_ feel like the fantasy child as she sprinted through the very same woods.

A boulder jutted out of the slope ahead of her. She charged towards it, ripping Myrtenaster from her belt with an audible shimmer and holding it in front of her like a jousting lance. At the last second, a black Glyph appeared before her, and she ran up the side of the boulder. For a flash of a moment she ran towards the sky, blue and brilliant and smiling through the trees at her. She laughed out loud, a juvenile cackle, opening her arms to the sun. Then the boulder plateaued and her eyesight returned to the invisible horizon and she leapt carelessly towards it. A ramp of white Glyphs spun into existence before her, and she slid down it with a whoop, blistered heels gliding along it like ice skates. As she hit the ground running, she caught a glimpse of something in the forest ahead of her -- something shiny, bright, not of the dull world around her. Another flash of it through the trees, and she recognized it: the beaming radiance of the most yellow hair imaginable.

Weiss’s vision was hazy through the exertion of her blind dash through the forest, but the ultimate blondeness was unmistakeable, even from at least a hundred yards away. As Weiss sped closer, the light seemed to jerk suddenly, disappearing behind trees only to reappear several feet later. The figure attached to the golden hair, grey and red and tan, was dashing about around a great black mass.

 _Shit!_ Weiss thought, and then politely revised to _Grapes! Yang’s in trouble!_

She thrust out Myrtenaster and laid a track of white Glyphs before her. With one kick off the ground, she went zooming forward, gliding effortlessly over the glimmering path towards the fight. 

As she got closer, she could make out events more clearly. Yang was running circles around some sort of Animan bear Grimm, dodging and ducking under its massive, slashing paws. She almost seemed to throw herself into these motions; Yang would toss her weight to slide out of the monster’s path just in the nick of time, but would always rise back to a fighting stance as soon as she was out of harm’s way. It almost seemed like she was enjoying herself, flinging her own body into and out of danger like dancing around fire.

Weiss was almost tempted to slow down to watch more carefully. Yang was clearly faring well enough on her own -- talk about having experience living in these woods. But there was something else that Weiss selfishly hoped: by not intervening, Yang might have to pull out her Semblance. If she could catch a glimpse of Yang’s Semblance, Weiss thought, it might abate some of that gnawing curiosity that she’d had ever since seeing the picture in Ironwood’s office. 

One paw came careening towards Yang where she had just avoided a swipe. She dove into a roll and tumbled under the paw, barely grazing it as she rolled to her feet and kept running. Weiss watched Yang’s face, which was tilted downwards as she ran.She could see Yang panting, face flushed and skin shining with sweat -- it seemed that the “throwing” motion wasn’t as effortless as it appeared. Yang slid to a stop behind a tree and crouched, releasing a round of dry coughs into her fist. There was a confused, distant look on Yang’s face as she took cover -- that one you get when your inhale is interrupted with an exhale before getting enough air in or releasing enough out, and you’re suddenly wondering if you’ve lost control of your breathing and if your consciousness will go next. 

But Yang’s face hardened, red eyes narrow and focused as her chest rose and fell. Weiss felt her own breathing catch. _Show me something,_ she coaxed.

With another roar, the Grimm reared on its hind legs and raised its paw, aiming to strike at Yang once again. Yang began throwing herself out of the way, but her movements were too sluggish. The Grimm’s paw crashed clean through the trunk of the tree that stood between Yang and the beast.

Adrenaline surged through Weiss’s veins -- _can’t show me your Semblance if you’re dead!_ \-- and in one final burst, she pushed forward and slid to a stop behind the Grimm. Weiss adjusted her posture, posing with Myrtenaster at eye level.

“Hey!” Weiss called.

The Grimm paused and let its front paws hit the ground. The vibration shook the trees. Weiss stomped one foot into the ground behind her, knee bending slightly as she absorbed the shock. 

_Balance,_ a voice whispered in her head. 

Weiss extended her other leg forward as the Grimm slowly turned towards her. Its blind eyes sought aimlessly for their target. It was truly massive, but slow-moving. Winter had never Summoned this particular kind of Grimm, yet nevertheless, she knew more than enough from seeing Yang avoid its attacks. She could avoid its swats with her agility for sure. 

She struggled with her breathing for a moment. 

_Focus._

She pushed the air out of her with a low whistle.

The Grimm snorted. Its claws dug into the ground as it regarded her, leaving deep gouges in the soil.

She flipped Myrtenaster into attack position under her chin, looking down the blade at her opponent. The tip aligned with a spot right between the monster’s eyes.

_Wait for it._

The Grimm growled. Its body tensed up.

_Wait for it…_

Any moment now. Then, she would put a strike along its eyes and a spike through its skull.

Myrtenaster glittered in the dappled sunlight.

A spot in its hind leg squeezed and she thought, _Now!_

As the spring released and the Grimm leapt forward, something zipped past Weiss’s face, and with a _crack,_ the beast fell limp and collapsed to the ground.

Weiss stumbled out of her own momentum, arms flailing as she tried not to crash into the Grimm. The dead Grimm, she now realized. It went up in smoke, serenely wafting towards the sky.

She found her footing. Her legs were propped up underneath her at improper angles, but it hardly mattered at the moment. Right now, she was preoccupied with picking her jaw up from off the floor. She stared at the evaporating Grimm. She stared at Yang, who now rose from behind the tree stump. Her neck twisted and she stared at the still woods behind her from where the mystery projectile came. She stared back at Yang. Back at the ground. She quit staring.

“Did you do that?” she said. Silly question. She snapped her jaw shut. 

“Thanks!” Yang called, throwing her voice past Weiss to somewhere behind her. “You can come down now.”

“Uh, now that she’s here?” a voice responded from the trees.

Weiss’s eyes widened. _Oh no._

“If you insist,” it said reluctantly.

From behind her, Weiss heard the rustle of leaves a _thump_ as someone hit the ground. She began turning in place, slowly, like in a horror movie. It would be amusing, if not for the genuine dread pulsing in her ears. She would have never been so happy if she had misidentified the voice.

Her eyes landed on a face with an eyepatch and a bright red cape.

She groaned.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Crimson said. She pouted. 

“Ladies, no need to be mean,” Yang said cheerily. “Let’s just try to be friends, alright?”

Weiss was drafting an objection, more out of revulsion than of anything else, when Crimson sighed and said, “I mean, better than attracting Grimm.”

Weiss blinked as Crimson turned towards her, surrendered a hand, and looked in a different direction. “Hey, White. I’m Crimson. Let’s be friends so we can climb a mountain without being mauled.”

Weiss fumed. Oh, that _had_ to have been intentional.

“It’s _WEISS,”_ she said. “Weiss Schnee.” She stamped the ground for emphasis.

“See?” Crimson said, looking towards Yang. "Didn't work."

“Weiss Schnee, huh?”

It didn’t come from Crimson or Yang, but from somewhere behind Weiss that they were already pointing their weapons at before Weiss could even turn her head. She did the same, feeling somewhat obligated, and found the tip of Myrtenaster pointing at a figure hidden amongst the trees.

The first thing Weiss noticed about them was the bow. Standing straight up from their head like a big pair of ears was a black ribbon that seemed to blend into their velvety hair. A single lock of their bangs was swept askew. Weiss resisted the urge to reach out with Myrtenaster and nudge it back into place.

“That’s correct,” Weiss replied. She lowered her sword slowly, eyeing the newcomer. “Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.” 

_PleaseknowwhoIampleaseknowwhoIamplease--_

They deadpanned, and for a moment, Weiss was crushed.

Then, they tilted their head forward, as if looking over invisible spectacles, and said, “Yes, I know who you are.”

Weiss suppressed a squeal. “Finally!” she sighed. “These two ignoramuses have no idea.”

Yang lowered a gauntlet and glanced over at Weiss. “Okay, rude.”

The newcomer ignored Yang. Their yellow eyes had fallen on Crimson. Something buzzed between them for an instant -- an invisible electricity that caught Weiss’s attention.

But then Crimson rubbed her eye, and whatever it was disintegrated. Weiss scribbled down a note in the back of her mind to ask about that later.

For now, though, they had a job to do.

“This is Yang and this is Crimson,” Weiss said, gesturing. Straight to the point: “Who are you?”

The silence before their response lasted just barely too long. Weiss’s eyes narrowed. 

“Dusk Nightshade,” the newcomer said. “Very nice to meet you.”

Yang didn’t miss a beat. “Nice to meet you too!” Her voice somehow sounded like a smile. “Wanna join us?”

Dusk didn’t return the smile. “Sure,” she said flatly.

Weiss bit back a less-than-friendly remark. “We should at least _all_ have a vote…”

But in Dusk’s eyes, there was some sort of relief. Her demeanor towards Weiss activated Weiss’s instinctual defensiveness, even though Dusk showed little hostility. In fact, she didn’t seem to show much of anything at all. When she spoke, she was expressionless and motionless, with a voice that was tinny and hollow. Weiss would have preferred a creepy AI receptionist to this girl’s lifeless disposition any day. But when Dusk was looking at Yang, there was a spark in her eye in place of the coldness she projected to Weiss. And, though it felt ugly to acknowledge, Weiss couldn't help but feel the tiniest pinch of bitterness manifest inside her.

Then, Crimson collapsed to her knees and wailed.

Weiss’s attention shot to Crimson in surprise. Crimson’s hands gripped her face, her fingers clawing around her eyes. She keeled over on the ground and released another whine.

“Whoa!” Yang exclaimed. She dove towards Crimson and knelt next to her, hands hovering over her trembling form. Crimson didn’t seem to acknowledge her, whimpering as she pressed her hand tighter over her eye.

“It hurts,” she moaned, “it hurts, it hurts…”

“Crimson,” Yang said, “Crimson, Crimson, you okay?” She placed one hand on her back and another on her shoulder. Crimson’s fingers curled. Yang squeezed her, almost medically, as strategically as doing chest compressions. “What hurts? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Crimson’s teeth ground against each other, but a few struggling breaths escaped her mouth.

“Something’s... coming...” she said. Her voice was small and raspy.

Weiss adjusted her grip on Myrtenaster. She stared. “I’m sorry, what did she just say?”

Yang ignored her. “Okay,” Yang acknowledged absently. Her grip on the smaller girl strengthened. “Okay, thank you. What’s wrong? What hurts?”

Dusk reached behind her head. She pulled a black shortsword off her back with a _shing_. She and Weiss shared a glance, and it lingered. When their eyes made contact, the same wavelength of iciness as before vibrated between them, but Weiss also felt that they had just formed an instantaneous bond of crisis -- the kind that strangers that are late to the same event form just by sharing an awkward glance.

Weiss nodded. Dusk did not.

A breeze made the canopy ripple and Weiss startled. She brandished Myrtenaster and scanned the treeline. The forest had stilled, and now portrayed no signs of movement.

Weiss looked up. Patches of blue sky shimmered through the leaves. As of yet, nothing loomed overhead.

Her gaze returned to Crimson, shivering on the ground with Yang at her side. She felt silly, now that the shock had worn off. Here they were, all riled up for _“something,”_ when there appeared to be nothing around to threaten them but the sudden onset of a migraine. Were they seriously arming themselves against a headache?

And like waves in the ocean, the ground beneath Weiss rose up with a crash and sent her flying through the air.

 _Balance! Focus!_ barked Winter.

She landed horizontally against a Glyph, rebounded off of it, and rolled to a crouch on the ground. She ran through a mental checklist -- she wasn’t injured, her hair was still up, her weapon was still in her hand. She launched to her feet and raised Myrtenaster before her.

She gasped.

Now _this_ Grimm, she was familiar with.

She remembered well the first (and then decidedly only) time that she had to fight this particular Grimm. Its spectacular size made for an impractically ostentatious art installation in the east wing of her house, but more importantly, made for an enemy impossible to beat without a heavy hitter. Weiss had lost the battle against Winter’s Summon because of two factors: its titanic size and thick armor. Mammalian Grimm only had hardened backs, but this one had the advantage of a scaly hide. No amount of firepower amongst the four of them could get through it -- not even Yang’s mysterious Semblance, Weiss reckoned.

The King Taijitu roared, much in the way that normal snakes do not, and Weiss realized _oh, shit -- grapes, whatever -- it’s roaring at me!_

She scattered a line of Glyphs and fired a volley of ice shards towards the creature, not to inflict damage, but to lay down cover fire while she regrouped with Yang. The Grimm shrieked as a crystal exploded into pieces on its face, debris falling into its sensitive eyes. Weiss dove to her left onto a piece of relatively level ground -- _Balance! Focus! --_ and surveyed her surroundings.

Yang must have somehow carried Crimson out of harm’s way, for they were now both behind an uprooted tree. Yang stood at arms, watching the King Taijitu from between her fists. Crimson was still curled into a ball behind Yang and pressing a hand over her eye. Whatever it was that was going on with Crimson, it had fully incapacitated her, Weiss guessed.

It took Weiss a few moments longer to find where Dusk had ended up before her eyes landed on a flash of white through the canopy. She was perched on a tree branch, partially concealed by the thick vegetation as she carefully scoped out the scene. _So that’s how she snuck up on us,_ Weiss realized. 

The Grimm hissed and coiled into a towering armored pillar. It bared its fangs and its forked tongue flicked out between them, taking in its surroundings through smell. That was the other thing that terrified Weiss about this monster: its intelligence. Huntsmen often lost their lives trying to hunt them down within their labyrinthine burrows, and thus, the few serpents that survived long enough to establish a territory tended to live a very, very long time thereafter. 

(What? She knew her biology. Give her a break.)

All this to say that a King Taijitu of this size was uncommon, and uncommonly intelligent to boot.

They didn’t stand a chance.

“We need to get out of here!” Weiss shouted.

The Grimm’s head swiveled towards the source of the noise and it reared to strike. She propelled herself upwards with a Glyph as the King Taijitu’s fangs shot forward at terrifying speed and sank into the ground where she once stood. She ricocheted off another Glyph and landed next to Yang.

“No!” Yang objected, readying her fists. “Let’s show ‘em what we got.”

 _As tempting as that is,_ Weiss thought, “I’ve fought one of these things before! None of us have the firepower to take it down.”

Yang’s eyes glinted. “Wanna bet?”

The Grimm repositioned itself and turned towards them. Yang smirked.

Weiss looked between the tiny blades on her fists and the hulking Grimm before them.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t,” Weiss decided. “We’re evaluated based on cooperation, not combativeness. So, sorry in advance.”

Yang broke focus and looked at her. “What do you--”

She was cut off by an involuntary yelp as Weiss made the largest Glyph she could muster and catapulted Crimson and Yang a hundred yards up the mountain. _Hopefully they have a landing strategy ready,_ Weiss winced. But at least they were out of harm’s way.

When Weiss turned back, the creature’s body was coiled, ready to spring into another attack right towards her.

She exhaled -- _focus! --_ and pirouetted once -- _balance! --_ and struck Myrtenaster into the ground, sending a surge of ice towards the Grimm. Its head ducked out of the way, but the Dust collided with its body. It howled as a huge ice block formed around its neck, effectively pinning it into place for as long as Weiss hoped it would take to high-tail it out of here.

She stood up and scanned the treeline, blood pumping in her ears as she tried to locate Dusk. _Gods, where was she…_

“Dusk!” she called. 

“I’m here!” a voice replied from overhead.

Weiss looked up and barely had enough time to duck before Dusk swung over her, casting her weapon forth and pulling herself through the air in the direction of Yang and Crimson.

Another roar brought Weiss’s attention back to the King Taijitu. It wriggled furiously, tail lashing as it desperately struggled to break free. A muffled crackling sound, like a whole dance floor clapping in unison, alerted Weiss to a fissure growing rapidly along the ice. 

Weiss turned to face the slope of the mountain. Before her, a line of Glyphs extended into the woods.

She took a moment to catch her breath. Her blood raced. Inhale, _balance._ Exhale, _focus._

Another breath. _Balance. Focus._

Another crackling noise sounded behind her — time was up. She pushed out a final sigh, and took off into the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weiss: *Joseph Joestar voice* NIGERUNDAYOOOO
> 
> Sorry for not updating last week! As you could probably guess from the delay, this chapter is long af. Thanks for your patience!
> 
> Both Yang and Crimson's ref sheets are now available on my blog at thuskindlyshescatters.tumblr.com!


	8. The Mountain Temple

_“What’s that word?”_

_“And then I -- huh? ‘Impale?’ Oh, well, my dear, it’s just my_ favorite--”

_“Nuh-uh, the other one.”_

_“...do you know what she’s talking about?”_

_“Hm. Might you be talking about the word ‘Gods,’ little flower?”_

_“Yeah, yeah! What’s that mean?”_

_“...you’re serious?”_

_“I don’t think she’s capable of lying yet.”_

_“Not if I have anything to say about it!”_

_“Hush. Crimson, ‘Gods’ is an exclamation.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_“It’s something you say when you’re excited.”_

_“What’s it mean?”_

_“W--what does it_ mean?”

_“Yeah.”_

_“I see. Salem wouldn’t have taught her it, would she.”_

_“But surely you say it sometimes, Arthur?”_

_“Not around her, not really.”_

_“What! Does! It! Mean!”_

_“Alright, calm down -- patience is a virtue, little flower. Hazel?”_

_“What.”_

_“Explain it to her? Please? I’m a doctor of medicine, not of philosophy.”_

_“I think you’ll find he’s not a man of many words, either. Here, I’ll go. Crimson, Gods are what Salem is.”_

_“Tyrian, no. No more from you.”_

_“What? It’s true.”_

_“You’re a terrible influence as it is. Crimson, forget what he said.”_

_“But then what does it meeean?”_

_“Er-- Hazel…”_

_“...It’s just something people say, little one.”_

_Gods, my head hurts._

The sound of boots walking on mud. Voices, far off, but clearer than the ones in her dream. The noises ran under a pulsing rhythm in her ears, a muffling agent inside her head.

_Where am I…?_ Her thoughts slurred together.

“Dunno,” a voice was saying, clearer. “My money’s on traumatic injury.”

“What do you mean?” another one asked.

“Maybe she, like, sensed that the Grimm was coming and it triggered phantom pain in her eye.”

“Phantom pain? You mean…?”

“I mean, why else would she have an eyepatch, y’know?”

Crimson forced her eye open. Dull throbs rolled rhythmically through her head like waves crashing on a shore. She squinted, wincing at the blunt jabs of pain. 

She couldn’t make out much but blurry shapes in motion, sudden brightness, and the throbbing. Her eyelid fluttered.

“Why would you enroll in a Huntsmen Academy if… whatever _that_ was... happens whenever you get close to Grimm?”

A pause. “...Maybe not all people enroll to fight Grimm.”

“What else would they want to fight? Serial killers? Drug dealers? Just join the police.”

“Or the mob.”

“Whatever.”

She fought to keep her eye open. There was a mass of bright yellow right next to her face that made her eye water. She squinted. More shapes -- something dangling in front of her, something ahead of her whizzing by.

“The Huntsmen Academies _do_ teach you how to fight people, though. Actually, that’s most of the curriculum.”

“Uh, how would you know? You’ve never taken a class.”

“My mother went to Beacon.”

“...what?”

“It usually runs in the family, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but, _your_ mother…”

She willed the shapes into cohesion. Her arms -- they were her arms that dangled in front of her.

But why couldn’t she feel them?

“Oh. You know who I am, then.”

“B-but it’s not like it’s a bad thing! I’m from Atlas, I don’t know anything about you bandits other than the fact that you exist.”

“Oi, watch the language.”

“Wh-- huh?”

Her arms swayed limply, to and fro, bobbing with her vision. She was upside-down. And the yellowness next to her face -- it was hair. Yang’s hair. Yang was carrying her. Crimson was draped over Yang’s shoulder.

For a moment, she was stricken with complete clarity. 

_This is my chance to kill her._

“Wow. You really don’t know anything about us 'bandits,' do you?”

“Hey, at least--”

“And Dusk, you really don’t seem like much of a talker, eh?”

_She’s so close. If I could just…_

“Stop… carrying her like that.”

“What?”

“The blood is rushing to her head. It’ll only make her unconsciousness last longer.”

She tried to lift an arm, but it didn’t respond. The beginning of pins-and-needles floated like static in her fingertips.

“Well, how else should I carry her?”

“Bridal-style. Like this.”

“Nah, that’s inefficient for hiking.”

“What do you mean?”

“It restricts how high your leg can go, see? Plus, this way, only one of my arms is occupied.”

“Have a lot of experience lugging dead weight up a mountainside?”

“Loads.”

There was pain in Crimson’s arms, now, but they remained unresponsive. _Gods,_ she cursed, _if only I could..._

“Well, you should at least take a break for a bit, or switch her to your other shoulder.”

“Hey, don’t tell me how to do my job, princess.”

“Ugh, that’s not what I was implying. I’m simply saying we could all take a break, catch our breath a little, and cool off.”

_No! I just need a bit more time…!_

Crimson frantically tried to wiggle her fingers, but she felt nothing other than jolts of wake-up pains.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Yang said. “Dusk? What do you think?”

But her thoughts were still so fuzzy, so far away. And that damned pulsing was making her head throb. Could she really be blamed if she was incapacitated?

“Sure,” Crimson heard Dusk reply. “We’re almost to the peak anyways.”

So what if she didn’t kill her here? She squeezed her eye shut. Here there were witnesses.

“Alright, help me put her down. Gentle, now.”

She willed away the returning feeling in her muscles. No, she wouldn’t be able to curl her fingers, she thought, even as she did. 

She could feel something squeezing in her stomach.

_Nah,_ she thought, awake. _Not today._

The summit of Little Nichibotsu was actually not a summit at all. Once Blake and her associates had reached the perceived peak of the mountain, they discovered that the ground suddenly sloped downwards into a gaping crater, as if a giant had cleaved away the peak with an ice-cream scoop. The caldera of this mountain contained a single yellow-leaved tree and a pool of collected rainwater. The leaves from the tree were everywhere; an impossible number of golden leaves, considering the tree's size, covered the entire bottom of the caldera in an uninterrupted lawn, though somehow no leaves rested on the surface of the water under the tree. Alas, aside from these natural features, there was little present that suggested a “mountain temple.” If there ever was a temple here, Blake reckoned, it was abandoned long ago, and whatever was left had long since been buried underneath this yellow shroud. 

“What a complete waste of time,” Weiss whined. “All that hiking, and there’s nothing here but soggy leaves and a puddle.” 

It was not the first time this afternoon that Weiss had made a declaration like this. In fact, Blake had been keeping count. (It was the thirteenth.) She had begun to keep a mental record of every instance of the heiress’s slights, for the purpose of recalling them months from now in the moment of her death. Oh, to savor a vengeance that sweet. She now held greater respect for Adam’s philosophy -- why list your grievances when there is grander catharsis to be found in standing over your enemy, sword gleaming, with only indictments in your eyes and fear of retribution in theirs?

Tempting as that was, Blake was becoming inclined this afternoon to just shove her off the ridge.

“I didn’t know Little Nichibotsu was a volcano,” Yang observed, looking down into the caldera. “I thought those were mostly on coasts.”

“We’re close to the shore of Lake Matsu,” Crimson pointed out. “But I don’t think this is a volcano.”

“You into geology?” Yang asked.

“Nah,” Crimson replied. She crouched on the ridge, resting her knees and rubbing her eye. “Had some mountains back home, is all.”

Blake had decided not to show it, but her suspicions of Crimson had only deepened since she woke up. An hour ago, she had been thrashing and sobbing on the ground to the point of exhaustion. If Blake had had an episode like that, especially around people she’d just met, she would be behaving steelier than ever. Yet, now, the girl’s silver eye twinkled with liveliness and unguarded curiosity. The only symptom she seemed to show was the habitual rubbing of her eye.

But perhaps, Blake’s mind told her, that was all part of the ruse.

She tensed. Even before a few days ago, Blake had been wary of the machinations of this invisible organization. She had theorized that information on them was limited because they solely operated from the shadows -- that they never sent out agents that could be caught, or that they only ever used others to achieve their goals while safe at the controlling end of their long arm. And then they showed up at Haven Academy, just waltzing in as students with the same names and outfits and haircuts, and that theory evaporated.

All that Blake knew about them was that they seemed completely confident that Blake would be capable of planting the Black Queen virus in the CCT system in spite of this lack of discretion. Of what that victory meant, Blake had only a vague idea. There was going to be an attack on Vale during the Vytal Festival, and apparently, this virus was crucial to the White Fang’s success. What they would be succeeding at, Blake wasn’t sure of either. But she trusted that, in time, she would be filled in on those details. The trust she invested in the White Fang would be returned to her.

She found herself clenching her fist.

Unless, of course, she found out on her own. 

Ever since encountering Crimson in the forest, she had been contemplating this option. She could leverage the assumption that she was the only person who knew of Emerald and Crimson’s true identities as infiltrators. And based off of Emerald’s attitude towards her, that knowledge wouldn’t be a problem as long as Blake continued to prove her loyalty. But if they knew that she had obligations beyond the mission, that trust would likely be broken. Only if she appeared loyal could she probably slither her way into their ring of trust and forego risking investigating in secret.

And now, she realized, she had the perfect place to start: befriending Crimson, her trusted teammate.

The problem was that she had no idea how to do that.

“Well, volcano or not,” Weiss said, kicking Blake out of her head and back into reality, “it doesn’t have what we’re looking for.” She looked very shovable. “Let’s turn back.”

“Wait,” Yang said. “There might be something here that can help us.”

Weiss rolled her eyes. “Like what?”

Yang pointed. “Like that.”

Blake's eyes followed her finger to the edge of the pool of water. Peeking out from underneath the carpet of yellow leaves were splashes of grey -- smooth, grey rocks lining the pool that did not match the blue-grey stone of the mountains around them.

There was something on these rocks, small masses that blended into the leaves. They were spaced inconsistently, but formed a semicircle around the pool. The golden leaves fluttered up against them in the wind, interrupting the yellow carpet.

Blake looked down at the golden slope before her. A light breeze brushed her hair across her face, and a notion of déjà vu fluttered through her heart. The yellow leaves on the ground -- so like the red of Forever Fall, yet different, for reasons that were both logical and ineffable to Blake. Of course it’s different; she’s not in the same place. She’s left the red of Vale, and is now at the golden summit of Mistral.

_It doesn’t have to mean anything,_ she told herself. _A slope is a slope._

She leapt forward, stuck her right leg out before her, and began surfing down the slope.

“Whoa!” Yang said. “Wait for us!”

The golden leaves kicked up behind her as she leaned forward, letting her body accelerate. With all her years of experience, she had no trouble at all skidding to a halt as soon as the ground leveled and beginning her evaluation of the defenses of the train.

She was shocked by how natural it had felt.

There was no train.

“That looked cool, I'm not gonna lie.”

There was, however, Yang.

Blake brushed her hair back into place and casually looked around. She glanced towards Yang, who watched her with those kind, red eyes of hers.

Her hair matched the leaves, Blake thought idly.

She heard Weiss’s Glyphs behind her and turned. The heiress had created a path of black discs and began walking down to join them, her body perpendicular to the yellow slope. 

_Oh,_ Blake noted. _So that's where the logo comes from._

Crimson whooped as she launched herself down the hill after her, so fast that she blurred into a streak of red that at least _sounded_ like it was having fun. She suddenly became just that, right before Blake's eyes -- not a girl at all, but a bundle of red twisting through the air. It blasted past Weiss, Blake, and Yang with such a _whoosh_ that Blake and Yang stumbled and Weiss was almost blown flat. In its wake, the red vortex left behind scattered spots of red that Blake at first thought were leaves as well: like leaves from Forever Fall, in fact. She picked one up off the ground and inspected it. Instead of the waxy texture of a leaf, she recognized the velvety sensation between her fingertips.

_Crimson’s Semblance is generating… rose petals?_ Blake thought. She looked up at the girl. Crimson was already to the water’s edge and leaning over the objects curiously.

_Very fast rose petals?_ she revised.

“Hey, uh, Dusk?”

Blake turned to look at Yang. Her gaze was fixed on something above Blake’s eyes, and for a petrifying moment, Blake thought her ears had been exposed by Crimson’s gust of wind.

“You have some petals in your hair,” Yang said. 

Blake relaxed.

Yang lifted a hand tentatively. “I could pick them out if you want?” 

She suddenly tensed again and quickly stepped back, her own hand jerking upwards. “No, thank you.” She cursed herself for the awkward reaction. Blake waited to see suspicion in Yang's red eyes.

But Yang snatched her hand back and held it up in submission. “I get it,” she said. “I hate it when people touch my hair too.”

Blake said nothing, only watched her as her hand slowly lowered. Her gaze remained sharp while the rest of her body relaxed. Blake hadn't asked to know that. Yang had just... said it. Confided it in her. It wasn’t a human thing, Blake thought -- just a Yang thing.

“Hey, guys!” Crimson called. Their heads turned. “This looks promising.”

Blake took the opportunity to exit the situation and began walking toward Crimson. But just to be sure, she quickly reached up and adjusted her bow as she turned away from Yang.

“Aren’t you going to help _me_ get this stuff out of my hair?” Weiss said.

Yang took it as a joke and laughed, though Blake was dead sure that Weiss was being serious.

“Well, _you’re_ clearly feeling better,” Yang observed as she approached Crimson. The girl knelt on the ground over one of the objects Yang had spotted around the pool. While Weiss and Yang converged on Crimson, Blake chose to inspect another a few meters away. After a quick count, Blake spotted eight in total, no more than half a foot tall and so thoroughly covered with wet leaves that Blake was impressed that Yang had spotted them at all.

She knelt down and began delicately peeling leaves off the object. Underneath the yellow leaves was a hard, black stone, carved into elegant yet sturdy curves. Holding it in her hand, she now recognized the shape.

“It’s a pawn,” she said, holding it up for the others to see. “A black one.”

Crimson rubbed her eye and held up the one in front of them. It was lacquered with golden polish, matching the color of the leaves. “This one’s a white rook.”

“That’s not white, it’s yellow.” Yang said. “And what’s a rook?”

The other three gave her a look. Blake held her judgement, but was nonetheless surprised.

“You really do live in the woods,” Weiss said dryly. “They’re chess pieces.”

“Oh!” Yang said. “Like the board game? I’ve never played.”

Crimson looked up at her with disbelief. “Really? How come?”

Yang looked askance. “We aren’t really supposed to bring things with item sets back to the tribe. Easy to lose pieces, and then they’re useless -- just dead weight. My mom once found my friend and I playing cards and made a whole scene about how things like that aren't allowed, can you believe it?”

“I really can't,” Crimson said, aghast. “I grew up playing nothing _but_ chess!”

Blake took note of that with a narrowing of her eyes. _Did you now._

“I can teach you,” Weiss offered Yang. “If you’d ever be interested in learning, that is.”

Crimson scoffed. “And you just happened to bring a chess board to school?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“Well, prepare to have your butt kicked,” Crimson declared, “because I learned from the best chess player in the _world.”_

The thought struck Blake.

_The Black Queen virus._

Crimson might have learned chess from her master, who, if true, is apparently an avid chess player -- hence, the Black Queen virus. Blake looked around with dawning intrigue. Was it a coincidence, then, that the temple contained chess pieces? Was it deliberate on the Academy’s part? Was there a connection between the Academy's decisions and Crimson's master's?

She smothered the thought. If anything, it was Crimson’s master, the shadowy mastermind behind the eventual attack, that would have chosen a symbol so resonant with the Academies’ existing traditions. Blake was sure that the whole point of infiltrating the schools rather than starting an open war was _because_ the Academies were none the wiser.

“I decline your challenge,” Weiss said, and Blake was brought back again.

Crimson stuck out her tongue.

_“Anyways,”_ Yang enunciated slowly, “I suppose these are the Relics that we’re supposed to bring back.”

Crimson put the rook down and looked around. “Yeah, probably. They don’t look like what I expected.”

“Me neither,” Yang agreed.

“But look,” Weiss said. “It doesn’t seem like there’s enough for all the teams, no?”

Blake’s eyes dashed around the ring. She recounted the same value of eight in total. Even if there were four students to a Relic, there weren’t enough of them here for all of the students that were lined up at the riverside.

“We must not have been the first ones here,” Blake concluded.

Weiss crossed her arms. “I hate being in second place.”

“Oh, more than second,” Crimson said. “We must have been, like, the fourth or fifth.”

Weiss growled, and Crimson simply rubbed her eye.

“Let’s just grab one and get going,” Yang said. “I wanna get to the river with plenty of hours to spare before sundown.”

She leaned down and picked the white rook up off the ground, then turned on her heel and began back the way they came.

In a flurry of rose petals, Crimson was suddenly standing in front of Yang. She snatched the rook from Yang’s hand. 

“Hey!” Yang barked, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but Blake swore her hair got even brighter. Blake blinked. “What’s the big idea?”

“What the Gods are you doing?!” Crimson cried. _Haven’t heard that one before,_ Blake thought. “The symbolism of chess pieces is super important! We can’t just take one willy-nilly.”

It definitely was not a trick of the light -- Blake watched as Yang’s hair really did glow brighter as Yang said, “The Headmaster didn’t think to mention it, so how important could it be?”

Weiss stepped forward. “Not that Crimson _isn’t_ making an unnecessarily big deal about this--" "Hey!" "--but it’s possible that the piece we choose is significant, and they chose not to tell us because it would rig the sorting process.”

“Yeah!” Crimson said, then added, “Ew, I just agreed with Weiss.” She made a show of rubbing her eye as her face soured. “But yeah, I was thinking, what if the teams with less than four people get matched up with whoever grabbed the same piece of the other color?”

There was a pause as the others pondered this. Blake supposed it made sense; the pieces were spaced around the pool in a manner that suggested there couldn’t have been sixteen pawns originally, but rather, only one of each color.

“Well, we have four people,” Yang said. “Shouldn’t matter to us.”

Crimson wilted like supermarket roses.

Yang put her hands on her hips and leaned forward. Her face split into a grin. “Buuut, if it’s important to you, then go pick one out and you can tell me the symbolism! Okay?”

Blake raised her eyebrows.

Crimson’s face lit up. “Really? Yeah, I’ll show you!”

She rubbed her eye as she trotted over to the rim of the pool and began uncovering the other chess pieces. 

Weiss huffed. “This isn’t a good use of our time.”

“Whatever,” Yang said, “we have plenty.”

Crimson made quick work of peeling off the wet leaves sticking to the statuette, excitement clearly spurring her nimble fingers onwards. Blake frowned. She seemed so youthful in her enthusiasm. Yang’s sign of approval seemed to have invigorated her mood, and this time, Blake had no doubts about its authenticity.

If Blake was being honest, she would admit that she was grateful for Yang’s presence. The girl somehow knew exactly how to counteract Crimson and Weiss’s inexplicable rivalry, somehow doing so without aggression or antagonism of any kind. If it were up to Blake to handle Weiss’s sassiness or Crimson’s childishness, she’d simply shout them into place. A well-meant threat or two would get them right into line. She learned from the best, after all.

“Alright.” Crimson stood up and Blake was knocked back to attention. She gestured to one piece. “This one’s a black knight,” she said. “To me, they symbolize both honor and recklessness.”

“All truly devoted chess players have their own interpretations,” Weiss interjected, holding up a finger -- the classic know-it-all stance. Blake rolled her eyes. “For me, the color matters as well. Knights are symbols of valor, but _black_ knights are soldiers of the God of Darkness, that fight the eternal war between dark and light, Grimm and humanity.”

Blake cringed.

Weiss didn’t seem to notice _(of course she didn’t,_ Blake thought, _but it’s for the best)._ She put her finger down and clasped her hands behind her back. “At least, in Atlesian culture, that is.”

“Wow,” Yang marveled. “I thought it was just a board game.”

“It is,” Crimson argued. “What's all this mumbo-jumbo about God? The colors don’t mean anything. The chess pieces are just human nations warring, destroying each other in the process.”

Blake cringed again.

“That’s interesting,” Yang said with consideration. “It’s neat to see your differing opinions.”

Crimson and Weiss glanced at each other. “It is?” they both said.

“What can I say?” Yang replied. “I like learning. What about you, Dusk?”

Blake jumped. “What?”

“What’s your take on chess?” Yang asked. “You’ve been quiet, but I’ve seen your face. You appear to have a dissenting opinion?”

Blake did not express the dread seeping into her nerves. The eyes of the others were on her now. She watched Yang’s face. Her red eyes were calm, friendly even. The shallow curve of her lip indicated nothing but casual curiosity.

The edge of her thumbnail pressed into the pad of her index finger. She could just flat-out refuse to comment, and avoid walking the knife’s edge between blurting out clues about her identity and being completely dishonest.

Her gaze lingered on Yang.

She sighed. 

“Chess pieces… don’t have meaning.”

She expected a squawk of protest from the others, but none came. She looked away from Yang and towards Crimson, who watched her with the same childlike curiosity she devoted to the Relics, and towards Weiss, who beheld her with polite respect.

She didn’t believe it, but floated on a compulsion to keep going. Her nail dug deeper into her finger. “The game isn’t about the pieces, it’s about the players. You don’t sacrifice the pawn because the bishop deserved to live -- you sacrifice the pawn to win against your opponent.” She looked back at Yang. “It doesn’t matter what you do with them, as long as your real-world objective is realized.”

There was a pause. Her heartbeat thumped in her ears.

“The meta point of view,” Yang commented. “You’re a true realist, Dusk.”

The muscles in Blake’s shoulders gently eased. She didn’t say anything, but shot a grateful glance towards Yang, hoping she understood.

“Well,” Weiss said, “now that _that’s_ out of the way, let’s pick one and go.”

Blake’s gaze swiveled to Weiss and festered there. Not that talking about chess was her favorite thing in the world, but it was better than hearing her boss them around.

“Awwww,” Crimson whined, “but I haven’t even explained the rest!”

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied.

Crimson slumped.

"It's okay, Crimson," Yang consoled. "You can tell me about them when we get out of this forest."

Crimson hummed quietly.

Weiss brushed past Crimson and picked up a yellow figurine.

“We’re taking this one,” she said. “The White Queen. It is the most powerful member of the God of Light’s army, and happens to be my favorite piece. Any objections?”

Crimson opened her mouth.

“Good,” Weiss said quickly.

Crimson grumbled. Blake agreed.

“Now,” Weiss continued. “Which way down the mountain?”

Yang surrendered a finger and pointed. “That way’s East.”

Weiss nodded curtly. With the Relic in her hand, she turned and began walking wordlessly eastward. Blake had been working hard to keep herself motionless, expressionless, submitting absolutely nothing to the others that could rouse suspicion. Her face remained perfectly still, her gaze perfectly level with her body doing nothing but carrying her from place to the place.

But if she could, Blake would sneer at seeing her head so highly held. She would sneer, and Ilia would snicker.

It was a petty thing, but it grew from something far more powerful within Blake. If that girl felt so high above them, with her bossing and her elitism and her whining, then so be it.

It was her own head she was putting on the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting waaaay too long, so I split it up into Crimson and Blake's POVs this chapter, and Weiss and Yang's POVs next. I promise that the next chapter is the last chapter of initiation.


	9. Team Wicked

In Yang’s honest opinion, it had been going well until the river.

Here’s what had happened. They had been fortunate, at first, in that Dusk had somehow sensed the pack of Beowulves approaching before Crimson could have another one of her “episodes.” That’s what they had been calling them, in lieu of a more medically-accurate term. Yang had been taught to always, always, _always_ stand and fight Grimm packs unless you had an environmental disadvantage (which they didn’t, in woods of only light to moderate density), but Weiss insisted that they were already so close to the river, so they should just run the rest of the way there. Yang was ready to blame Weiss’s poor choice of footwear and weak ankles for the long-term outcome of this choice, but what was she supposed to do about it? Tell her no, and attract more Grimm from Weiss’s whining? But now that they were running, the Grimm would pursue their scent, of course, which Yang considered pointing out, but her teammates would know that, wouldn’t they? Of course they would. In retrospect, she could also blame her overestimation of her teammates’ competence for the current situation, but was that really _her_ fault, or was it just their fault for being idiots, you know?

Anyways, they had gotten to the point where they could hear the river just a few hundred feet ahead of them, when the Grimm in pursuit now flanked them on either side. The dark shapes also hurtled towards the river, probably to cut them off, so Yang, apparently the only person who knew what she was doing, finally suggested that they stand and fight. She had gotten the anticipated reaction of “no, Yang, there’s too many, meh meh meh, I’m from Atlas but I definitely know how to deal with a pack of Grimm better than you cause I’m so smart,” or something to that effect, which must have practically demanded that the universe deal an immediate blow of irony, because it was at that very moment that the Grimm reached the river and forced them to do what Yang had known that they should have done in the first place.

Yang had hoped that their bad luck would have worn off by now, but nope! It gets worse. Weiss barked at Crimson to get up into the trees and snipe from a distance, which actually wasn’t a bad idea, what with the Grimm-induced hysteria, and all. But it was only a couple minutes later when that idea would actually prove to be a terrible one, as it was one of Crimson's kill-stealing shots to a Beowulf right in front of Weiss that caused her to misfire her fire Dust right up a tree, and -- well, long story short, the woods they were fighting in were now on fire, and Crimson had to get down on the ground to fight, except now she was starting to keel over and grab at her eye, so Yang had to come protect her, and she couldn’t help but feel like she was partially responsible for this since she had the power to summon convenient showers out of a clear sky and put the fire out, but that was against the rules, right? Maybe Dusk was secretly a servant of Salem, who knows.

It seemed like Dusk wasn’t going to stick around for Yang to find out, because she, apparently only feeling encouraged to offer her opinion in life-or-death circumstances, suggested that they just get their task over with by crossing the river and retreating. Weiss, who Yang at this point suspected of having something to prove, adamantly rejected that idea, though it staggered out over a few labored breaths and pauses for combat. Yang herself wasn’t doing too well either. She knew that within the next few hits to her Aura, she’d either have to release her Semblance soon -- her _real_ Semblance -- or change up the weather, both of which were risky moves to make in the long-term. Which was worse: someone discovering her Maiden powers and planning to kill her, or someone that had been under the impression that the Maiden powers were her Semblance discovering her _real_ Semblance and demanding an explanation that Yang couldn’t give? It was a real long-term pickle that Yang was hoping to avoid within this short-term pickle.

At that point, Yang had been sure that the short-term pickle couldn’t get much worse. Crimson was down and in worsening condition, Weiss had literally set their surroundings on fire and somehow didn’t think that that was a good place to call it quits, and the only person who seemed to be in her right mind was Dusk, but Dusk clearly had some sort of problem with taking initiative, because she made no further effort to wrestle away Weiss’s authority. Instead, after Yang had only turned her back to the river for _five seconds_ , Yang witnessed Dusk throwing her weapon through the haze of smoke into the branches across the river and trying to swing across.

Yang also witnessed how the fire had jumped from one flaming limb leaning over the rapids to the treetops on the other side, and she also witnessed the branch Dusk had latched onto crack, and she just barely had time to cry out a warning before her teammate crashed into the violent waters. 

This almost brings us to the present moment. There was a peak of Worst Pickle Possible that this moment could have reached: Crimson would be down and helpless, Dusk would be drowning in the Matsu River, and Weiss, in all her stubbornness, would prioritize her pointless desire to fight these things over helping her suffering team, thus forcing Yang to spite her leadership and risk everything by turning to her last resort.

They very nearly did reach the moment of Peak Pickle. But the present moment, miraculously, ended up with just a few key differences -- in the few ways that counted. 

Yang would admit that she had predicted the worst based off of a few... false assumptions. She had correctly assumed that, very soon, Dusk was going to be out of the fight (at best) if nobody did anything to help her. She had also been correct in assuming that Crimson was out of the fight as well. Where Yang had been wrong was in (fairly) assuming that Weiss would only care about herself in this situation, as she had always done in the short time Yang had known her. 

This false assumption was why Yang had been so astonished, only mere instants after crying out, to see Weiss change her course without a moment of hesitation and shoot herself towards the river. Moving with unbelievable grace for her speed, she cast a black Glyph beneath her feet and manifested a line of Glyphs across the river, catching Dusk with the current like fish in a net. For the moment, Dusk was safe from drowning, but that was only as long as Weiss kept up her Glyphs. Yang could only spare a few wide-eyed glances towards the scene while she fought, but she had keen enough eyes to spot how, although Weiss’s stance was rooted, her grip around her weapon was shaking -- her Glyphs appeared strong, but it was taking all that she had to merely hold them in place, to strain against the thrashing waters that battered her Aura. Her face was dirty, white hair sticking to her forehead, accentuating her set brows and focused eyes and teeth clenching so tightly together that her lips trembled. She was fighting the river itself, surrounded by Beowulves, immobilized by stubbornness and strength alike, and doing everything she could to keep the stranger she disagreed with at best afloat.

That was the present moment. All of them struggling, some of them struggling for others. Better than struggling alone, in Yang’s opinion.

But struggling far too much, a part of her mind was quick to remind her. It had been foolish on Weiss’s part to use her Glyphs to help Dusk -- she couldn’t move or defend herself without letting the barrier down. Brave, and selfless, but foolish. Now, Yang was the only fighter left. The air was as thick with smoke as it was Grimm particles. Yang had killed any and every Grimm that tried to touch Crimson, some more brutally than others, but still they came down from the mountain in waves of three to a dozen. Even now, as Yang drove a spike through the last Beowulf’s eye, seven more were barreling through the trees towards them. They would arrive within seconds, as lively and bloodthirsty as the ones before them, and how desperately did Yang want to protect her team, her new friends, but alas. She had no idea, no possible strategy, for how she would protect her team from all their wrath with just her two fists.

The adrenaline was kind to her. Those seconds were divided into many, many moments, instances in which she could think about what to do, or simply brace herself against the impossible. But if Yang was being honest, she wasn’t sure what to do with this kindness. She was the wrong person to give it to. If the mastermind of the universe had extra time for contemplation to spend, they shouldn’t give it to Yang -- it was as good as worthless to someone who didn’t think ahead.

To Yang, it was suddenly simple. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the fact that she had something to protect. Maybe her mind had been made up the moment she saw how mistaken she had been about her teammate. Maybe that act had given her courage. Yang might have known why if she had used her extra moments to contemplate this, but she didn’t, and she was content with that. It didn’t matter why, but Yang knew that, when she let the heat of magic rush out of her with a cacophonous rain of lightning, hailing out of the sky like bullets made of glass, it felt _good._

There was ringing in her ears and a faint hiss of rising smoke, and the crackling of the canopy above her and the crashing of the river behind her. For so many sounds, the forest felt silent.

A few moments later, Yang could hear her heartbeat and her breathing. It sounded heavy. A moment after that, she could see again. She could see the fire in the canopy. She was on her back. Her back was on the ground.

“Yang!” 

She heard footsteps.

Weiss appeared above her. Dusk did too, wet but alive, adjusting her bow. Yang sighed in relief, her last ounce of tension trickling out with it.

Yang heard her own voice speak. “Is Crimson okay?”

Dusk looked away for a moment. Weiss continued staring down at her. Yang was too tired to read her face.

“Yeah,” Dusk said. “She’s unconscious.”

Yang pulled her body towards her knees and soon enough she was sitting up. “That’s alright,” she said, voice squeezing itself out of her. “I’ll carry her.”

Weiss planted herself in front of her. “You are in no condition.”

Yang regarded her and Dusk. Dusk shivered from cold. Weiss trembled from exhaustion. A couple of hits must have gotten past Weiss's Aura, Yang realized. There were bruises under the mud on her knees, and the resilience on her face was emphasized by a scraped, strong chin. The proud expression she put on while looking like a wreck almost made Yang want to laugh, but she wouldn’t. She was proud of her, too.

“And you _are?”_ was all she said.

Despite looking like she had _literally_ lost a fight with a King Taijitu, Crimson had never seen Weiss look happier. It was starting to weird her out.

Crimson’s attention was divided between watching the ceremony currently transpiring at the front of the entrance hall, nursing her residual headache, and paying attention to Weiss’s politely quiet yet demonstrably excited whispering. Every twenty seconds or so, when Lionheart pronounced a new team, Weiss would stop in the middle of a word to turn, smile, and applaud almost mechanically as the line of newly-initiated students in which they stood advanced by a step. This, too, was starting to weird Crimson out.

“It just came straight out the sky,” Weiss whispered to her animatedly. “Like, one moment they were charging towards us, and then CRACK! They were gone. Just like that, just--” she snapped her fingers, “--and she had destroyed _all of them_. I’ve ne--”

“Led by Sun Wukong!”

Turn, smile, applaud, step forward, turn back.

“--never seen a Semblance like it!”

Yang, who Weiss had to lean across in order to engage with Crimson, chuckled awkwardly. “Well, you know, I’ve had a lot of practice. With my Semblance.”

“Obviously!” Weiss exclaimed, then looked around with wide eyes like she was expecting a militant shushing. Crimson could relate.

“Obviously you have,” she continued, lowering her voice. “It took me _years_ of training to reach that kind of precision with my Semblance. How long have you had yours, since birth?!”

Crimson paused the rubbing of her eye. _Finally, some_ helpful _information._

“Nah,” Yang said.

Crimson waited for her to elaborate. 

She didn’t.

“From this day forward, you will work together as Team Citrus! Led by… Cressida Blue!”

Turn, smile, applaud, step forward, turn back. Crimson reluctantly resumed rubbing her eye.

“I just -- I can’t describe it,” Weiss said, despite having been describing it for the past ten minutes in glowing detail.

“I’m sorry you missed it,” she continued. “It’s just awful that you fainted.” 

_Yeah, rub it in some more,_ Crimson thought. She felt like it was childish to pout, but it seemed appropriate in this situation, so she did.

“I’ve actually been meaning to ask about that,” Yang jumped in, pouncing on the opportunity to change the subject. “Crimson, why _did_ you pass out, anyways?”

“Shhh!” Weiss hissed. “Keep your voice down!”

 _Hypocrite,_ Crimson thought churlishly. Yang shot her a glare that indicated as much.

“Yeah, whatever,” she mumbled. “But, Crimson, seriously, what happened?”

Crimson paused, hand freezing over her eye. 

She took a guilty glance into Yang’s.

She’d been asking herself the same thing all day. 

There were two things that had been bothering her since she woke up in the medical center. Number one: Yang had done something impressive and powerful, and Crimson hated herself for missing it. Like, come on -- her _only task_ at this point was to confirm if Yang was the Spring Maiden, and if she wasn’t, to come up with a simple excuse to drop out. “Raining a dozen lightning bolts down from the sky to immediately smite a charging pack of Grimm” sure _sounded_ like the powers of a Maiden, but it wasn’t any different from the Grimm-destroying lightning bolt she and Cinder had seen that had started all this. It could easily be her Semblance, and if she was lying about it, it would be an easy lie to tell, but Crimson just didn’t know how to coax that information out of her. It was frustrating. And Weiss’s descriptions were lacking helpful details, like if she had the telltale flaming eyes or if it caused any Aura drainage, frustrating her all the more.

And then there was the second matter. 

Her… episode.

That was just _scary._

It had never happened to her before in her life. Nothing like it had. Crimson was a child free of medical issues, save for a normal amount of colds and a few training-related injuries over the years. She had never been injured on a job, she was proud to say. And she had certainly never had chronic pain, psychosis, or any predisposition to fainting, seizures, or panic attacks (all words straight from the medical center’s clipboard). But today, just walking through the woods, she’s all of a sudden hearing these voices, hissing and inhuman, snarling from inside her head, saying things like _kill_ and _hurt_ and _brother_ and slithering towards her, and she’s feeling this dreadful agony, a pressure tugging her inward and engulfing her eye in heat and overwhelming her until it felt blissful to embrace the numb blackness.

And then it happened again! 

And she had no idea why. 

Her teammates had some pretty good hypotheses. Wrong, but good. Yang guessed that she had some Grimm trauma, which was furthest from correct, since Crimson had learned how to read while sitting in the lap of the World’s Grimmiest Lady, who helped turn the pages for her. She did _not_ have problems with Grimm, thank you very much.

Dusk hadn’t offered her opinion, or said very much at all for that matter. Nevertheless, Crimson was sure there was more going on in that head than she felt like sharing. Maybe _she_ liked to think she was an unreadable master of deception, but Crimson had caught more than a few suspicious glances shot her way.

And then Weiss had brought up how her eye kept watering, and _that_ was an interesting theory. Crimson thought it believable that the irritation in her good eye would escalate into searing pain, though she had no idea how or why. Furthermore, both these medical phenomena had never occurred before both showing up in the past week -- and there was no doubt that something about her _bad_ eye had definitely changed in the past week.

But that was a secret. Like, a _really big_ secret. More secret than attack-on-Beacon-secret. By a lot.

So she went with her honest answer and told Yang, “I don’t know.” It was true. It didn’t seem to satisfy Yang, judging by the furrowing of her brows, but there wasn’t much she could do to elaborate.

“Well, you should definitely get it checked out,” Yang said.

“Led by Maya Beech!”

They paused, clapped monotonously, advanced with the line, and turned back.

“I will,” Crimson replied. “I’m scheduled to revisit the medical center in a few days.”

“Did they tell you anything else?” Weiss cut in.

“Oh yeah,” Crimson groaned. This was the part that sucked. “They said I’m not allowed to fight until they give me the go-ahead.”

“What?” Yang said sympathetically. “Aw, man, I’ve been waiting to see you in action!”

 _Well, depending on your “Semblance,”_ Crimson thought, _you might get to see quite a lot of it._

“Cinder Fall,” Lionheart was saying, and Crimson’s thoughts veered away. She looked to the stage -- there they were! Cinder, Mercury, Emerald and Neo, all standing in a line, looking completely unscathed, because of course they were.

A big smile broke out on Crimson’s face and she pointed. “Those are my friends!” she explained in a rush. She looked back and forth between her teammates. Dusk, to her right, remained neutral. Weiss smiled politely.

Yang blinked. “Oh, I know that guy. Sat by me at orientation.” Her face soured. “Bad attitude.”

Crimson giggled. “Yeah, that’s Mercury for ya.”

“The four of you retrieved the black queen pieces,” Lionheart announced, somewhat hesitantly. Where his voice had started to sound bored for the last few teams, he now seemed almost skittish, glancing nervously at Cinder in particular. Though her back was facing Crimson, she would bet her good eye that she had that classic smirk smeared onto her face right now.

It was unkind, but Crimson was smiling when she thought to herself, _yeah, squirm, you lil' traitor!_

What? She was evil. She was allowed to think that.

Lionheart gulped, but pushed through it. “From this day forward, you will work together as Team Carmine.”

The letters appeared on the projector: Team CMNE.

Yang snorted. “There are other things you could spell with that.”

Crimson quirked an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Oh, you sweet summer child.”

“Um, I was born in autumn?”

“Never mind.”

“Led by,” Lionheart continued, “Cinder Fall.”

Weiss took up her golf claps. Crimson cupped her hands around her mouth and whooped.

Team CMNE walked off the stage, leaving only two groups of students before their turn. 

Weiss tilted her head thoughtfully. “I hope we get a good name.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Yang said, tone taking on a nervous lilt. “I can’t figure one out.”

Crimson hadn’t given it much thought, but it suddenly seemed like a pressing question. “Well, what colors have a C, a Y, a W, and a D in them?”

They all looked at the floor.

“Cedarwood?” Dusk offered, and Crimson jumped, because she had forgotten she was there.

Weiss shook her head. “Too long, I think. What about last names?” She pointed at herself and said, “Schnee, obviously,” before turning her finger on the others.

“Branwen.”

“Silver.”

“Nightshade.”

Weiss put a finger to her chin. “SBSN? Or maybe SNBS? For Snowballs?”

“Bonsai?” Dusk said. “BNSS?”

“BSNS,” Yang suggested with a smirk, “for Bossiness.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Weiss dismissed. “I have to be at the front, since I’m the leader.”

“Hence Bossiness,” Yang teased, “because you assume things like that.”

Thankfully, before Weiss could explode, Lionheart announced that Grover Basil was leading Team Green, and they paused to clap five times in unison and slide forward. Now that they were on deck, the conversation grew more urgent.

“Ugh,” Yang said, “well I don’t want a name like _green,_ that’s boring!”

“Well, with our names, they’ll definitely have to think of something _unique_ ,” Weiss said, putting judgemental emphasis on that idea. Her excitement had been drained out of her, and now she oozed a dangerous combination of stressed and sassy. “Everyone, just throw out whatever ideas you can think of!”

They stood in silence. 

“We’re so screwed.”

They nodded gravely at Yang’s prediction.

A chorus of applause went up as Team MAGD ( _Marigold, what a pretty name,_ Crimson thought, somewhat pessimistically) began leaving the stage.

“Alright, well,” Weiss declared, clasping her hands together, “let’s get this over with.”

Weiss turned and marched up the steps, and Yang, Crimson and Dusk fell into line behind her. As promised, four Xs taped onto the stage marked where each of them should stand. Out furthest towards the audience stood Weiss, a little cleaned-up since their initiation trial but still muddy-soled, and furthest upstage stood Dusk, still slightly damp and frizzy-haired.

Lionheart began announcing “Weiss Schnee,” but was slightly startled by the many gasps that elicited from the audience. Frankly, Crimson was too. She knew that _Weiss_ thought she was famous, but that was plausibly deniable as fact, just based off of the way she acted. Yet here Crimson was, hearing it confirmed with her own two ears by hundreds of voices. Someone near the stage even whispered, "Don't take a picture, dude, that's creepy, she'll probably get you arrested." Weiss didn't seem to hear it and shrugged, as she put on a crowd-pleasing smile that looked nothing like the real one. Crimson suspected that the shrug was part of the act -- feigning humbleness and relatability. Same thing with the little wave that followed it up.

Lionheart did his best to continue over the murmurs that swept the crowd of older students. “Yang Branwen.”

Crimson was surprised to hear that her name, too, was accompanied by whispering, but in less excited tones. Crimson looked up at the girl to her right. There was tension in Yang’s jaw, and her red eyes were set dead ahead, boring straight through the wall to the horizon. _Ooh,_ that was interesting. Her target had been expecting recognition where Crimson had not, and she seemed much less pleased about it than Weiss. Why? What did the audience know that Crimson didn't? Would she need to plan around that extra attention?

Lionheart, becoming fed up with the distracted audience but not sure how to address it, decided to continue forcefully, “Crimson Silver” sounding almost like an expletive meant to regain the focus of the room.

She was a bit miffed that nobody reacted at the announcement of her name. Maybe it was for the best. She glanced over the crowd, hoping to find CMNE at least smiling proudly at her, but the lights were too bright -- she couldn’t see many faces past the first few rows, after which the unlit crowd appeared as no more than black silhouettes.

“And Dusk Nightshade,” Lionheart finished. Similarly, there was no audible reaction to Dusk's name. Dusk had no reaction herself. Typical.

“The four of you retrieved the white queen pieces,” he continued. “From this day forward, you will work together as…”

They held their breath.

“...Team Wicked.”

A smile grew on Crimson’s face. Less of a smile, more of a smirk -- the one she learned from Cinder, and the one Cinder learned from Salem.

_It fits._

She sought her new teammates' reactions. Weiss was regarding her with an eyebrow raised, as if to ask _why are_ you _so happy, it’s not even a color,_ whereas Yang nodded slowly, like she was starting to dig it.

Dusk’s eyes flickered towards Crimson, barely touched Crimson’s gaze, and returned forward.

_Well, that could mean anything._

But weirdly enough, she felt seen. It was just a moment, but it was a moment of understanding, enigma to enigma.

 _That’s who we are,_ it said. 

_Wicked._

“Led by,” Lionheart continued, and Crimson was pulled back into the moment. Weiss squirmed next to her in anticipation, upstage hand curling at her side.

“Weiss Schnee.”

And rather than hearing a squeal of approval like Crimson had been expecting, or at least a “hmph” of satisfaction, Crimson heard Weiss issue a sigh of relief. She looked over, blinking in surprise. Weiss’s stage-smile had diminished into a small, genuine grin as she let her gaze fall to the ground. 

But it wasn't to last. With a roar of applause, the stage-smile was back. Weiss kept smiling brilliantly towards the crowd and waving as she walked offstage, trailed by her teammates that did not gain the same attention. _What a life that must be,_ Crimson thought, _where the mention of your name commands applause._

Another group of students replaced them onstage as they walked down to the other side of the auditorium, a reflection of their initial position at the start of the ceremony. Weiss led them single-file along the wall to the back of the line. Even while leading them through such a simple action, she paraded along with her head held higher than Crimson had ever seen.

 _Oh no,_ Crimson realized abruptly. _She’s going to be even more insufferable now._

They came to a stop at the back of the line, forming their own row of four. Them and their “team.”

With any luck, by the end of the Vytal Festival, at least one of them would be dead.

“Well,” Weiss crooned. She stepped forward and turned, looking them over with her chin up and hands on her hips. Crimson rolled her eyes. “Team Wicked, huh?”

“Sounds cool,” Yang commented. Crimson nodded.

“It’s a little… problematic, in my opinion,” Weiss said. “But we’ll wear it proudly.”

She put her hand out at waist height, palm facing down. Crimson didn’t recognize the gesture.

“Ready to face the next four years together?” Weiss asked, her smile almost back to genuine.

_We won’t,_ Crimson knew.

_I hope not,_ Blake thought.

_If I can survive,_ Yang wished.

“Hell yeah!” Yang said out loud, as quietly as she could while still sounding enthusiastic. She slammed her hand down onto Weiss’s to start the pile. Dusk reluctantly put hers in, glancing around at them like she was daring them to say something. After a moment of hesitation, Crimson placed hers on top, looking puzzled by the action but wanting to be included nonetheless.

“All right, then,” Weiss said. “Team WYCD is in this together.”

Cinder wasn’t going to pat herself on the back for passing initiation. Especially when she had an _arrangement_ with the headmaster. And besides, it would have been effortless without cheating anyways.

However, that didn’t mean she was going to say no to complementary food.

There were now about sixty first-year students milling around the floor of the entrance hall, carrying little paper plates piled high with cookies, fruit, crackers, and cubes of cheese. Low evening chatter of tired students created a chill, false-sense-of-security environment. It was quaint. 

Emerald and Mercury had wandered off to chat with (and presumably annoy) other guests. Cinder, never one for pleasant small talk, sat on the stairs beside the Statue of the Chained Spirit, munching on crackers in as evil a manner as one could muster while performing such a task.

She sensed someone approaching her and turned. She found herself looking down at Neo, who stood to the side of the stairs with one hand holding a plate of cookies and the other on her hip. She blinked at Cinder expectantly. When her eyes opened, Cinder was, privately, a little disappointed that both of her eyes remained the green of her disguise.

“What do you want?” Cinder asked.

Neo gestured with a thumb over her shoulder. Cinder’s gaze followed it.

 _Ah,_ she thought, _let’s get to work._

She picked up her plate and stood as Crimson and her team approached, trailed by Emerald and Mercury. Crimson was babbling to and clinging to the arm of none other than Weiss Schnee, dragging her along as she struggled to balance a plateful of blueberries and cookies. Of more note than the Schnee was the target, who walked beside them and was, to say the least, considerably more impressive in person than Cinder had gathered from the video. She completely overshadowed the random black-haired girl that followed her, who Cinder’s eyes almost completely missed. 

Crimson ceased her chittering and parked herself in front of Cinder. “I thought I should introduce you guys, since they’re my friends.”

 _Oh no I’m not,_ Cinder insisted.

Weiss reclaimed her arm from Crimson’s grasp and executed a small curtsy. “My name is Weiss,” she introduced. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Cinder blinked at her, almost unsure of how to respond to the obvious statement. “Yes," she said, "I know who you are."

Strangely, Weiss looked relieved.

“This is Cinder,” Crimson said, holding out her palm with faux-elegance. “And this is Neo.” She gestured to an empty space.

“Huh?” She looked around, lifting her arms as if she’d be wandering around at about hip-height.

“I think she went to get another drink,” Emerald supplied, obviously meaning _she bailed, it’s fine, get to the point already._

“Oh!” Crimson said, obviously not catching any of that. “Alright. Well, you’ve already met Emerald and Mercury.”

They waved. Cinder frowned in disappointment at their terrible smiles. Though capable in combat, they were inexperienced in subterfuge. She’d have to work on that.

“Nice to meet you guys!” the target said, and Cinder stared.

Now _that_ was a smile. 

Turning her full attention to the target, she was a bit stunned at how she glowed. That hair was truly the yellowest yellow that yellow could be, to the point where “neon” couldn’t even describe it. In the dimly-lit room, the target’s hair was the brightest light source. Aside from her smile, but that was less of a literal glow, and more of a pretty kind of glow.

Wait, no--

“And you are?” Cinder said quickly.

“Yang!” the target said, and she smiled again. Cinder wanted her to stop doing that for some reason.

But there was something else so fascinating about the target’s -- about _Yang’s --_ presence, something that both put Cinder on edge and pacified her with awe. Yang had some kind of magnetism about her that drew Cinder’s eyes when she tried to look away, which she couldn’t simply override just by telling herself it was her interesting clothing or unusual shade of hair. It was deeper than that; more compelling.

This energy that Cinder was feeling had to have been the pull of the Spring Maiden’s powers. That must be it. There was no other explanation so fitting, so promising. Deep down inside, her soul must have been crying out to the power that it felt, that it longed to have.

That it was destined to have.

Her fingers curled around her plate.

She needed to get Crimson to tell her everything she had learned about Yang, right now.

“Oh, and this is Dusk,” Yang said, pointing to the black-haired girl. “Since she probably wasn’t going to introduce herself anyways.”

“Hey,” Dusk reprimanded.

 _Yeah, don’t care,_ Cinder thought. She ripped her gaze away from Yang and moved it down to Crimson, who was busy separating two sides of a sandwich cookie. “Crimson, do you have a minute to talk?”

She began walking away, not waiting for an answer because she knew she didn’t need to. Crimson started after her.

“Sorry, guys,” she was saying to her teammates, “I’m sure this’ll only take a sec. No one eat the filling, that’s mine!”

Cinder shot a glance over her shoulder towards Emerald. They made eye contact that said, _Keep them occupied. Learn what you can._

Emerald nodded. For a rare moment, Cinder was grateful for her competence.

Cinder stopped once she knew she was out of earshot of Crimson’s teammates, and away from any potential eavesdroppers in the crowd. A few pairs of people chatting together set up a noise barrier between them and the others, guaranteeing privacy in plain sight.

She looked down at Crimson. The girl was looking between her and her new teammates, doing a much too convincing impression of an anxious puppy.

“Crimson,” Cinder called.

Crimson’s attention shot to Cinder, and she straightened. Cinder smirked.

“What have you learned?” she asked.

Crimson lit up. “So much!” she said, and Cinder raised her eyebrows. “I know that Weiss likes playing chess and that her favorite piece is the white queen, and I know that Yang wasn’t allowed to play chess growing up ‘cause it had too many pieces or something, and I don’t really know that much about Dusk since she doesn’t like to talk much but I kinda want to ask her about her bow ‘cause she seems kind of particular about keeping it on all the time. Um, what else? Oh! Weiss really likes blueberries--”

 _Oh, my Gods,_ Cinder thought with dawning horror as Crimson rambled on. _What has she been doing all day?_

“Crimson!” she snapped.

Crimson silenced herself with a yelp.

Cinder sighed to compose herself. “I want to know what you’ve learned about the Spring Maiden.” _Idiot._

“Oh!” Crimson said, like this was the first time she had thought of this. She eyebrows furrowed. “Well, um…” Her hands came together in front of her chest and she looked at the ground to Cinder’s left.

Cinder took in a deep breath and tightened her fists. _Gods above._

“Anything,” Cinder said, patience short. “Anything at all.”

Crimson switched to looking to the right. “Well, Yang did do something sort of Maiden-y.”

Cinder tilted her head, trying not to let her heart jump. “Do tell.”

Crimson fidgeted. “Uh, according to Weiss, when we were being attacked, she used a bunch of lightning bolts to kill some Grimm.” She looked at her hands. “I didn’t see it, but it sounded magical.”

“Didn’t see it?” Cinder asked. “How?”

Now Crimson looked _really_ sheepish, and that was never a good sign. Cinder braced herself for something truly stupid.

“I passed out,” Crimson confessed.

That… wasn’t what she was expecting.

“What?” she said, almost forgetting to be menacing. Crimson still looked at the floor, ashamed. “Why? You didn’t somehow lose to a handful of Grimm, did you?”

Cinder suspected that she was secretly incompetent, but this was on a whole new level.

“I don’t know,” Crimson said. Sensing Cinder’s incoming frustration, she put up her hands and said, “Really. I was in the forest, and then I suddenly had this massive headache, and then I passed out, and then after I woke up we got attacked a second time, and it happened _again._ ”

Cinder just blinked.

Crimson continued, filling the silence. “I think it had something to do with… this,” she said. She raised a hand and slowly pointed at her eyepatch.

Cinder narrowed her eyes, chewing on the information.

Well, this was unforeseen.

“Salem did mention side effects,” Crimson offered. “Like my eye watering.”

She hummed in acknowledgement.

This was an unforeseen problem that could have unforeseen consequences.

She should have known that it would be Crimson’s defects that might interfere with her plan. Crimson shouldn’t even have been here in the first place, she thought coldly; she was never a part of Cinder’s plan, just a side piece tacked onto the end because Salem thought Cinder could handle it.

No.

Because Salem thought Cinder wasn’t good enough.

Her jaw clenched. 

This had the potential to make Cinder’s standing go from bad to much, much worse. If this new factor caused any part of Cinder’s plan to collapse, it wouldn’t matter if it was Crimson’s fault -- Salem would always blame Cinder. She would always shove Cinder down in order to raise her sweet, precious Crimson up.

Cinder set her shoulders. Her jaw ached. She took a deep breath, forcefully, in and out through her nose. Crimson watched her with a wide, shining eye.

Then, with as much venom as she could summon, she leaned in close and said, “Don’t let it happen again.”

Crimson hesitated for a moment. Then, she nodded, rubbing her eye and looking away.

Salem made it look easy.

Cinder stood back to her full height. “You have seven days to confirm if she’s the Spring Maiden,” she instructed. Crimson gasped.

“A week?!” she balked. “But it took you ten times that to--”

Something cracked in Cinder’s neck as she dug her heel into the ground and growled, “Do you want me to make it six?”

Crimson retreated, looking down. A moment passed in silence.

When Crimson’s gaze flicked back up to Cinder’s, it was cold as death. Her lips had shifted seamlessly into a tightened scowl. 

An unwelcome sensation wriggled up Cinder’s spine. She intensified her glower to compensate.

“I’ll tell you everything I learn,” she said, eerily still.

Cinder bit down on her authority and responded, “Good.”

Crimson’s piercing gaze held. Determined to be unperturbed, Cinder lifted her free hand and flicked it idly, attempting to look bored. “Now go have fun with your new _friends.”_

She could feel Crimson’s silver stare linger on her as she stalked away.

Her arm slowly lowered to her side. This was fine. She had regained control of the situation. She just didn't want any more unforeseen complications. That was reasonable.

This was fine.

As she relaxed, she realized that her other hand was burning, and she looked down. Her fingers had been squeezing down on her paper plate throughout their conversation, so tightly that her fingertips had turned white. She ignored the tiny tremor in the plate.

“Cinder?”

She nearly jumped (but didn’t) and spun around to face the enemy.

Emerald jerked back at the motion and held her hands up, eyebrows high in alarm. Cinder hated the way her red eyes then became droopy and searching, almost like she _had_ caught Cinder in a moment of weakness. Almost.

“Yes, what do you want?” Cinder snapped, throwing up a veil of composure. 

Emerald looked askance, and Cinder dared her to comment on what she had just not seen.

Emerald blinked slowly and put her arms at her side, standing at attention. _That’s more like it._

“There’s something else you need to know,” Emerald said. She glanced back at Team WYCD. Cinder followed. Crimson had returned to her typical cheerful state, standing amongst her teammates like she hadn’t a care in the world. She was leaning forward with her hand on Yang’s arm, laughing as if to say, “nothing to worry about, friend!” 

She was exceptionally good at it -- unprecedentedly so. The smile on her face was the easiest Cinder had ever seen. Where had she learned to lie like that?

“What is it?” Cinder asked distantly, eyes still trained on Crimson and Yang. Something bothered her about that hand on Yang’s arm.

“Dusk Nightshade,” Emerald said, “is not who you think she is.”

Her blood turned to ice. Gold met gold.

The black-haired girl was staring straight back at her with the same, cold look.

_“What?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're off! Apologies for the long wait, this chapter got a little out of hand. But we're finally done with initiation! Yay! The rest of semester one is already planned, so I'll be able to answer non-spoiler questions ;)


	10. Shower Thoughts

Blake’s thoughts paced.

_“Am I free to go?”_

_“Emerald, close the door.”_

Back and forth, between two spaces, two times.

“None of you would mind if I sing just a little?”

“Ugh, please don’t--"

“You can sing?! Let’s hear it!”

Back.

_“You are going to tell us everything you heard, or pay a sorry, sorry price.”_

And forth.

“With a touch of my hand I will turn your life to--”

Receding back.

_“You can’t seriously expect us to believe that you, a Faunus, didn’t eavesdrop on us with those ears of yours.”_

_Are you the insecure type? Let’s find out._

_“There you humans go -- always completely clueless about how we work.”_

_Take the bait._

_A growl. “I know plenty about how you work. That you’re on Adam’s leash. That you’ve sold your life to the White Fang. And most importantly, that you, like everyone, have weaknesses.”_

_A smirk. Gotcha, bitch._

Jerking forth.

“Yasss, hit those high notes!”

“Do you really think we should be doing this in a _public_ bathroom? At almost midnight?”

“Oh, it’s well past midnight at this point.”

Distractingly, frustratingly, easily. Back:

 _“I hope that you understand that, if you_ are _lying to us, well… you can guess the consequences.”_

_“Are you done?”_

And forth:

“It’s fine, Crimson. Listen: hey, if there’s anyone else in here right now that wants us to shut up, speak now or forever hold your peace!”

A pause at the peak of forth, the crest of the pendulum swing.

“Hear that? No one in the last shower. Relax, Crimson, we’re not bothering anyone.”

“Except me…”

And the pendulum swings down again. Or, at times, her concentration did not swing as if at the end of a string, but sailed as if batted over the net between past and present, like badminton. The serve:

_“Do not mistake these meetings for an invitation into our circle. You should only be concerned with… keeping your friends close, one could say.”_

_“...I’m hearing Wednesdays at seven?”_

And the volley:

“So, hang on, pardon me if this is rude to ask: Yang, if you’ve never used a shower before, how did you bathe?”

“Nah, that’s not rude at all, Weiss! We used creeks in the summer and hot springs in the winter. Uh, and occasionally we’d use village bath houses.”

“Hm. Sounds unsanitary.”

“Okay, not rude until you said that.”

Her focus rocked with each wave of exhaustion, lulling her to sleep, or lurching her into seasickness. In moments when she could see through the haze of weariness that clouded her mind, she berated herself for not foreseeing this misery. To think that she had thought this plan was ingenious. 

It had seemed like the most perfect, infallible light-bulb moment she had had all day. Need an excuse to abscond with crucial new intel while under Crimson’s watchful eye? Especially after a long, exhausting day and impromptu interrogation when it would be suspicious to postpone sleep? Plus, a reasonable amount of time to get all the scattered puzzle pieces of info in one’s mind facing right-side-up? 

All could be addressed with a simple cover: a shower. And espionage aside, Blake really wanted one, too. 

The White Fang’s Forever Fall facility had three “showers” -- curtained stalls behind the main building, exposed to the elements, equipped with a pipe trickling sun-warmed rainwater over one’s body and through a wrought iron grate into the dirt. Under mandated time restrictions (but mainly in order to abridge the unpleasant experience), Blake had perfected her shower speedrun over the years down to a personal best of one minute and eleven seconds. (One day she’d break through to under a minute. One day.)

Thus, she wielded one of her greatest assets in spycraft yet: deceptive shower efficiency. She could simply shower in a leisurely three minutes, and then spend the next luxurious twenty, thirty, or even up to forty minutes sitting under the warm water with her scroll taking notes before Crimson even began to suspect she was up to something. A blissful brainstorming blitz -- a soothing opportunity to write down all the alarming, suspicious, hard-won information she’d accumulated throughout her hell of a first day, in the hopes of ending it with leads on some mysteries and plans for action on the rest.

If only it were that easy.

The plan went sideways, as you may have already guessed, but not at the intervention of the usual suspects. Crimson hadn’t suspected a thing when she announced her departure. Weiss seemed unconcerned with the needs of others, as expected. Once past these two obstacles, the path to the success of this operation appeared clear. However, the thrown wrench was, in retrospect, a foolish oversight: Blake failed to account for the ever-curious, group-oriented Yang Branwen.

It wasn’t Blake’s fault that Yang had never used a shower before. Nor was it her fault that, upon confessing this, Weiss immediately volunteered to assist. And faultless was Blake still that, when Crimson attested to her own griminess, Yang pronounced their team a scouting party to the communal bathroom down the hall. Just like that, what was supposed to be a relaxing and productive spa-and-intelligence-coordination experience for one, had suddenly expanded to a rowdy midnight shower excursion for four.

And that’s how she ended up here.

“You know, I actually released a new single quite recently.” Weiss’s voice floated on the steam from the shower stall to Blake’s right. “It came out only about... four weeks ago, I think? Care to hear it?”

“Oh, absolutely,” came Yang’s voice from another stall, unseen.

Crimson grumbled audibly, but Blake couldn’t discern what she said. Whatever it was, its tone sounded unkindly.

“Oh, quit your whining,” Weiss chided. “Usually, my concerts cost hundreds of lien to attend. Be grateful I’m letting you listen at all!”

Before Crimson could find her retort, Weiss breathed in.

Blake could only grit her teeth and shove her ears under the stream of water in hopes of literally drowning out Weiss’s shrill vocalizing. In the past twenty minutes, this bothersome pattern of noise had yanked Blake out of her grave concentration countless times, mid-thought, to the point where it now felt more tiresome to resist the distraction. The inescapable whirlpool of chatter had been worsening, too. Each word Yang said seemed to reverberate off every single particle of water vapor and send the waves crashing clumsily into Blake’s sensitive ears. Crimson’s decreasingly potent attempts to quiet down her teammates strengthened the alliance between Weiss and Yang, in the same manner as would result from trying to blow out a bonfire. And Blake, amidst this, was nearly too exhausted from a full day of hiking and fighting and being interrogated and _nearly drowning_ to pursue fulfillment of her task, much less attempt to haggle with her teammates for some peace and quiet, as her brain was running on naught but fumes and her energy was all but spent.

Basically, Blake was not having a great time.

On the bright side, the chatter itself could have been more annoying. Take Weiss’s singing, for example. It was… well, it wasn’t _bad,_ per se. It actually wasn’t bad at all. Blake had assumed that her singing was autotuned (not that she’d ever willingly buy and listen to her music, of course -- an obvious principle of the White Fang was “don’t support racist billionaires!”). Blake had rolled her eyes and cracked jokes with Ilia every time the heiress released a new single because, let’s face it, it wasn’t hard to seriously doubt the talent of those that would always value profit above any kind of artistic expression. What Blake was trying to say was, even if she _did_ ever spend actual money to listen to Weiss Schnee sing, she wouldn’t expect great results.

But, from one tiled wall and plastic curtain away, she actually… wasn’t all that bad. She was definitely a better singer than Blake was. Her tone was completely different from her usual bratty timbre -- not only when singing operatically, but also when belting obnoxious party love songs, too. She didn’t sound mature, just… different. Than what Blake was expecting.

 _So what?_ some voice nagged in her head. _Racist people can be good singers too, I guess._

Blake looked down.

_Why are you even thinking about this? She won’t die from you praising her to death, no matter how hard you try. Get back to work._

Blake let her head gently hit the wall with a soft _thud_ , plunging her ears back under the water. Weiss’s voice faded into muffled, formless noise.

She waited. 

...Okay. Her focus was stable, for the moment. Maybe, if she was quick, she could finally wrap up her task for tonight. 

Blake shook the water out of her bangs and the tiredness out of her eyes. With her thumb, she swept droplets off the screen of her scroll. The text was slightly distorted by a trick of either the water or the mind; both were plausible. She squinted, scrolling up and down to jog her eyeballs and get her eyes to focus.

The untitled document on Dusk Nightshade’s scroll was divided into three sections of notes. The first: Team CMNE. She had already written down several key inquiries: _Who are they? Who do they work for, how large is their organization, etc? How are they here, unnoticed? What do they want with Yang?_ And then, for good measure, she noted a few less pressing questions, like _Who is Salem? Is the connection intentional between the initiation “Relics” and the Black Queen?_ Blake felt that those could be put off until the other, more burning questions had been addressed.

The second section: Team WYCD. This section was founded on Crimson’s presence, but expanded to invite her growing curiosity about Yang’s situation. _What is Cinder/Crimson’s interest in Yang? Yang’s Semblance? The Branwen Tribe? Who are they?_ Then, _What is the “Spring Maiden?”_ It certainly didn’t refer to the fairytale, from how Cinder and Crimson spoke of it. _A codephrase/codename, like the Black Queen? For what/whom?_ This question was beginning to climb in Blake’s list of priorities, as with each new question, Blake slowly realized that the threads connecting Yang and CMNE had begun weaving tighter and tighter together. If nothing else, cracking the code on Crimson’s task from Cinder could add a drop of clarity to this dark, swirling sea of unknowns. Who knew what other breakthroughs could lie underneath this one veneer?

That was a matter for the third and final section of Blake’s notes, which compiled what Blake _did_ know, including her guesses at the awareness of others. Unfortunately, this section was not nearly as long as the others, but nevertheless held some comforting truths: _No one knows about the Schnee mission. It is easy to get Cinder to monologue. Team meetings with CMNE + Crimson are every Wednesday at 1900 hours; check/take notes immediately before and after._

One of Weiss’s high notes collided with the ceiling and ricocheted into Blake’s human ear, once again sending her concentration veering off course. Her thoughts halted inelegantly, like cars sliding on an icy road, nudging at each others’ bumpers.

“Holy shit, how high IS that?” Yang exclaimed. Weiss cut off in giggles.

“Uhhh, a B6?”

“Psht, like I’d know what that is.”

“Don’t tell me I need to give you piano lessons, too!”

“...What’s a piano?”

“YOU’RE KIDDING--”

Yang hooted. “I am! I am! Oh, Gods, you’re so gullible. Okay, carry on!”

Blake raised her eyebrows.

She scrolled to the bottom of section three and typed, _Weiss is gullible?_

Then, after some hesitation, added, _Yang is a pretty convincing liar._

She shook some droplets off her scroll and stared at the screen. _Anything else?_

When additional ideas failed to appear, Blake began chewing her lip. Now came the time to contemplate the matter of finding answers to these questions. If she chose to hide in plain sight, she could probably find resources in the library that addressed things like Yang’s tribe, “Spring Maiden” and “Salem,” and -- for the long term -- her target, Weiss Schnee. But, regrettably, her looming suspicions of Team Red (Carmine and Crimson -- Blake though it was a clever name) would have to be investigated through field work. She could start by taking advantage of her connection with Crimson, and when she hit a wall of stubbornness or suspicion, she could then turn to her stealth or advanced skill in eavesdropping. She wondered how far she could pry them open before they became wary of her curiosity. They already looked down on her as a Faunus -- perhaps they didn’t consider her to be a potential threat. She had gotten them to believe they had overestimated her hearing; could she do the same for her competence? 

It was an idea she had no choice but to entertain. Until the second semester, the only actions she could take to satisfy her curiosity would be to spy and spy and spy until she was either caught, or finally at bottom of this invisible conspiracy.

Ugh. She was getting exhausted just thinking about it. Blake was never any good at riddles.

Why was she doing this again? 

_No,_ _don’t be like that._

But why not? Who is this for?

_Blake…_

If she decided to, she really could just pretend she hadn’t heard anything. That Team Red and herself were being 100% transparent with each other about their goals. That the inexplicable involvement of her seemingly innocent teammate did not trouble her. A teammate Blake had only known for a day. A teammate who is human, who _will_ burn in the attack on Vale.

_Don’t you want to know why?_

Did she? Was it not easier not to know?

Weiss sang. The water rushed around her ears.

_Does Yang need to be caught in the crossfire? Do any of them?_

Don’t they?

She had no duty to them. Only duty to herself, to the Faunus, to the White Fang.

_It’s strange. You didn’t have these doubts before you sat down and did all this._

...Maybe she had just been too tired to think about those doubts before.

_Not true._

No, it wasn’t.

_If for nothing else, Blake, do it for yourself._

Herself? She would be risking everything to do it, so how could she do that in the name of just herself? Hell, she wasn’t even doing it in her own name -- she was doing it as Dusk Nightshade, a shadow of a self.

_But did you not come here as Dusk Nightshade? Did you not come here so she could be free?_

Of course not. She came here because she was told to. That was just something that happened, not by choice.

_It’s not a bad thing, to want to make your own choice._

Blake sighed.

She knew.

_Made up your mind?_

She already had. In fact, she probably had made it up the moment she stepped into the shower; the moment she’d created the document she’d soon come to guard with her life; all the little moments where she’d fought with her consciousness to get this done. And until all this was over, months from now, she’d probably be making her mind up every single day.

_I’m glad. You’ll be alright, Blake. Curiosity won’t kill this cat._

Weiss’s song ended, the exact frequency of the closing note resonating against the tile, and Blake was swept back into the present.

“Damn, Weiss.”

“Too dark? I could sing something brighter if you want!”

“Nooo, enough singing, please…”

“Not to say that it’s not utterly gorgeous, but I’m actually gonna agree with Crimson here. I’m pretty much done and the steam’s getting to me, so, like, maybe we could call it a night, if that’s okay?”

At the thought of being done with this unbelievably tiring day, Blake’s body grabbed the reins and had her groan in agreement. “Ugh, please, Gods I’m so tired.”

Gasps echoed from two stalls, followed by a short chuckle from Yang. “Sorry, Dusk, I think we forgot you were here for a second. No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied, coming out as a sleepy mumble.

She closed her scroll and stood woozily, turning off the shower with her free hand. She heard another do the same, and the swishing of a shower curtain parting. 

Blake concealed her scroll by folding it into a washcloth and tucking it into a pocket of her shower caddy, out of sight. Then there was the other matter of concealment. As Yang and Weiss carried on a brief conversation about how to turn the shower off, Blake snuck her hand beyond the curtain and grabbed one of her two towels off its hook just outside her stall. She flipped her hair over, folding forward so her face was turned upside-down and her hair hung loose from her scalp. Then, with the aid of many years of practice, she used the towel to wrap her hair -- and the ears that stood among them -- up into an innocuous towel turban. 

This idea was an invention of Ilia’s to counter the suspicion that may arise from wearing the bow to bed. Now, upon actually trying it out, it occurred to Blake that she would have to wet her hair every single night to validate this practice. Unless, perhaps, she could give the unconvincing excuse that she was too tired to remove her bow... which would only work for the few first nights she invoked it, if at all.

This job would just be brimming with little challenges, wouldn’t it?

Ilia would roll her eyes. Blake could picture it, were she to be discussing this with her. She’d say, _“you have the opportunity to take a nice, long, hot shower every night, and somehow you’re complaining?”_ And Blake would probably say back, _“Ah, yes, an astute observation, Sister Ilia. An enjoyable shower is no easy task. A necessary sacrifice indeed.”_

And then they’d laugh.

Blake didn’t smile.

She ran her fingers over her covered head. To the surprise of her fingertips, the top of her head underneath the twisted towel was flat, earless. Slightly agape, she raked her hand back and forth across the top of her head, exploring the foreign sensation. Blake didn’t have a great word to describe the feeling she sometimes got on the rare occasions when she pondered how her life would be different, physically, without her Faunus trait. It usually came down to amusement. What an odd existence humans must have, indeed.

After a satisfactory number of dumbfounded pats, she removed her hand to grab the other towel from the hook and dry herself off before wrapping it around her body. With the other hand, she lifted her shower caddy, and drew aside the curtain.

She was not expecting to see Neo on the other side.

Yes, Neo. Neo Politan. Not Neo, the N in CMNE, that first-year Haven student with black pigtails and green eyes, but Neo, an infiltrator of Haven Academy and probably a known criminal, with hair like the ice cream and eyes to match. 

More curiously, she was standing in a towel, hair dripping, with her two mismatched eyes stuck to Blake.

Though her brain had been behaving sluggish moments before, Blake now felt a surge of electricity boost her thoughts rapid-fire from one terminal to another. In quick succession, she went from _was she showering in here the whole time?_ to _where’s her disguise?_ to _she might be recognized_ to _I don’t have a good cover for her_ to the conclusion that _we can’t let her be seen._

Neo must have seen this journey on her face, because she nodded in acknowledgement, grateful at how quickly Blake had caught on. Holding eye contact, Neo raised a finger up to her lips in a shushing gesture. Blake nodded. This problem had to be solved quickly, but without any audible indication that she was there. Blake guessed that that part would only be difficult from Blake’s end.

Blake looked to Neo’s discolored hair and pointed, mouthing _“disguise?”_

Neo shook her head. She closed her eyes briefly, and a web of mottled Aura appeared around her body, flickering weakly. Blake’s eyes widened. She mouthed, _“Semblance?”_ and Neo nodded without hesitation. 

Blake blinked. Perhaps it was only due to the shared moment of crisis, but regardless of what brought it on, Blake was pleasantly surprised by this gesture of trust.

“You guys can go back to the room without me,” Weiss’s voice announced from behind a curtain, breaking the silence and making both Blake and Neo jump halfway out of their skins. “I need to blow-dry my hair.”

Neo pointed towards the door and raised her eyebrows (which matched, to Blake’s surprise). Blake nodded quickly, urging her on with a shooing motion. She was turning to leave when a shower curtain swished open, causing them both to freeze as Blake’s brain braced for a disastrous revelation of secret identities that would inevitably snowball into a blowing of cover and the crumbling of every long-term goal Blake had ever had. She swiveled around to meet her fate.

She came face to face with something potentially worse.

The face in question was already wearing its eyepatch when it revealed itself from inside the shower stall. When Crimson’s uncovered eye fell upon them, it lit up in careless recognition. “Oh hey, Ne--”

Both Blake and Neo shot her the most abrupt, cutthroat glares seen since the dawn of Grimm and Crimson startled, trailing off as her smile faltered in realization of her mistake.

“--eeeeeee...on,” Crimson finished, glancing between them for approval. Blake’s face of alarm staggered, twisted its ankle, and tumbled into disbelief. Neo lowered her face into her hand. Crimson’s smile screamed. The damage had been done, and all three of them knew it.

“Oh, wait, what?” Yang said.

“Is there someone else in here?” Weiss continued.

At that, Weiss emerged from her shower stall. Blake did her best to smother her expression and indicated to the others to act natural. Neo neutralized her stance, whipping up a convincing expression of politely-suprised-to-see-you. Crimson, on the other hand, first posed with her hands on her hips, then cocked her head and moved a hand under her chin, then awkwardly settled on doing both at once, all with the uneasiest of smiles.

Blake’s eyes subtly shifted to Neo’s. 

_I know,_ Neo replied.

“Yup!” Crimson said to Weiss. “Just a friend of mine, Neon… Pink!”

“Weiss Schnee,” Weiss answered dismissively. She brought her hand up to her chest and looked away bashfully. “Were you, um, in here the whole time?”

Neo nodded curtly. 

Weiss’s eyes widened and she reddened. “Oh my goodness, I had no idea! I hope my singing didn’t bother you too much.” Then, in a reversal so perfectly Weiss, her gaze turned accusatory and she put a hand on her hip. “You should have said something!”

Neo shook her head. She pointed at her throat and mouthed, _“Lost my voice.”_

Blake tossed an unreceived look in Neo’s direction. _Nice save._

Weiss’s expression softened and a hand jerked towards her own throat sympathetically. “Oh, how awful. I hope you feel better.”

Neo nodded again, grinning sweetly.

Considering that to be an adequate resolution to this interaction, Weiss turned on a heel as best she could in shower shoes and walked towards the sinks. The three of them deflated, tension dissipating as quickly and easily as turning off the stove.

Neo leaned over and smacked Crimson in the shoulder.

“Ow, hey,” Crimson muttered. She rubbed her eye.

Now that the moment of crisis had passed, Blake found the time to think it curious that Crimson wore her eyepatch out of the shower. She would have thought, nearly naked as she was, that the bathroom would be one of the places where she would end up removing it. Not that Blake had been wanting her to -- her privacy was her own business -- but she couldn’t help but wonder. Was it a necessary visual aid? A covering for a disfigurement? An item of comfort? Perhaps she bore a scar so distinctive that she would be instantly recognizable were it left uncovered. That would be lucky, if true; just a glimpse of that scar, and a huge piece of the puzzle would be suddenly complete. Although, now that she thought about it, Blake knew of few scarred vigilantes.

In fact, just the one. 

“Aw, did I miss her?” Yang asked, returning Blake to presence. “You’ll have to introduce me someday.” 

Blake blinked and looked around. Only Yang, Crimson, and Blake stood by the showers, and only Weiss stood by the sinks. She hadn’t seen Neo go. 

Blake turned an eye on Yang and found herself surprised by her appearance. Post-shower Yang looked strikingly different from pre-shower Yang in one aspect: her hair was wet. Before, her golden hair had qualified as a light source; now, it hung heavily from her head in a thicket of unremarkable shades of brown. It was still recognizably blonde hair, but just that -- not radiant or electric in any way. 

And then, after the moment of initial surprise subsided, a different observation about her hair arose that maintained Blake’s stare.

Yang’s hair was steaming.

Blake thought it was merely steam from the room at first, clinging to her damp head in compliance with the laws of condensation. But as the seconds passed, it became more and more apparent that the white wisps of vapor rose directly from Yang’s hair, like a smouldering doused fire.

Yang seemed unperturbed, red eyes tired but unbothered. She yawned. “We ready to go back to the room?”

Blake considered telling her about this somewhat alarming phenomenon, but she hesitated on her doubts. Perhaps Yang already knew about it. Perhaps she was doing it on purpose, somehow -- or perhaps, it simply happened on its own, and she was ignoring it as one ignores air in a room. Perhaps she was, for some reason, embarrassed by this uncontrollable fact of her being, and to point it out to her would deliver upon her such a blow of humiliation that their fledgling bond of trust would never take flight.

“Woahhh, what’s up with your hair?”

Or Crimson could just... do that.

It was really going to be like this all the time with her, wasn’t it?

Thankfully, Yang did not take offense. She blinked for a moment, then brought a hand up to her neck and pulled her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, the steam?” she clarified, looking down at said steam. “It’s, uh…”

She took a peculiar pause, and Blake’s attention pricked up.

“It’s my Semblance,” Yang finished, with a bit of a sigh. “One of the perks is that it ends up drying my hair faster. Neat, dontcha think?” She grinned.

Blake frowned. She knew Yang was capable with dishonesty, and yet, after a pause Blake thought was surely taken to fabricate a lie, she had answered truthfully. At least, Blake perceived truthfulness. And with an answer like that, what alternative explanation could there be that required so believable a lie? What kind of subject necessitated both hesitation and honesty? Innocent talk of her Semblance?

And then Blake’s sixth sense tingled on the back of her neck, and she looked up to see that Weiss had gone still by the sinks, and with a jolt of shock, Blake found her blue eyes piercing Yang’s reflection in the mirror. There swam in her eyes an unidentifiable look of uncharacteristic fervor -- a parting of the lips and lifting of the lower eyelids and shrinking of the pupils, a gaze so much sharper than the blunt little jabs of her performative glares throughout the day. It stirred Blake to see it worn so readily on the heiress’s face, as if it had been lurking under her paper-thin expressions all day long, waiting for an opportunity to breach the surface. 

Her eyes moved in the reflection, caught Blake’s, and swiftly looked away.

Blake had not been meant to see that.

Which meant that… that was on purpose.

Something had caused that look. Maybe what Yang had said -- something about her hair, or maybe her Semblance. Ah, well, Blake was well aware that Weiss was enamored with Yang’s Semblance, confirmed by many minutes of her enthusing over such today that Blake would never get back. Why it excited her so, Blake wasn't sure. But Weiss’s look just now had not been one of the same quality of excitement. Then, Weiss had smiled. Now, Weiss looked chillingly stern.

To her own surprise, Blake’s target had now entered the arena of inquiry. She could practically feel her future fingers typing out several sudden additions to Section 2: _What was Weiss’s interest in this conversation? Was it talk of Yang’s Semblance? What provoked such a look of uncharacteristic intensity, from such a perfect position to eavesdrop?_

Like distant thunder, the thought rolled through Blake’s mind.

_Is Weiss Schnee a spy?_

No. _No._ Blake’s brain scoffed. _Surely not. Not a spy for the Black Queen organization, at least._

The thought lingered.

_But… there could be other organizations. Other parties of interest._

_Who? For what? Why Yang? Why_ Weiss?

No. It was too improbable; too unrealistic. Weiss Schnee couldn’t be a spy, because what kind of organization would hire the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, the most exceptionally wealthy…

...unjustly influential…

...secretively-dealing organization on Remnant...

No, this was-- no! Who was she kidding? The Schnee Dust Company, an obesely widespread enterprise, didn’t need a spy in Haven Academy of all places. And even if they did, they wouldn’t send the most universally recognized teenager in Solitas to do it. More importantly, it didn’t need a spy on Yang Branwen, if that really would be Weiss’s hypothetical mission.

The thunder receded. No, Weiss Schnee was not a spy for the Schnee Dust Company. This was stupidly obvious. Her sleep-addled mind was simply stumbling into false conclusions, reading too far into coincidences and skimming over hard facts. She should have expected this to happen -- Adam told her all the time that she’d get like this when she was tired; make assumptions, see things that weren’t there, be too critical. It was a good thing that she’d caught herself doing it when he wasn’t around to help.

“Come on, let’s get back to the room. See ya, Weiss!”

Yang spoke. Blake startled. Barely a second had passed.

Crimson was frowning like she wanted to say something, but nodded and began following Yang towards the door. 

Weiss slid her gaze across the mirror from herself to them and mumbled in acknowledgement. “I’ll be back in half an hour,” she added.

Blake was the last to reach the door of the bathroom. She secured the towel around her body with one hand and slid the handles of her shower caddy into the crook of her arm, reaching for the door with her free hand.

She found herself pausing.

 _She couldn’t be,_ Blake reminded herself.

She glanced over her shoulder casually, as if sweeping the room for anything she might have left behind. Her gaze landed on the girl at the sinks.

She was struggling with her hair. There was simply too much of it to pile neatly atop her head, and so she fumbled with much rolling of her wrist and twisting of her fingers to get it properly coiled into pins. It was past midnight. Once Blake left, not a soul would enter the bathroom until morning, and Weiss would be left to struggle alone. Unless, of course, drying her hair was a clever cover-up, and as soon as Blake was gone she’d get out her scroll and start taking inventory of her intel exactly as Blake had been doing only a few minutes ago.

But seeing her now, standing alone in front of the mirror, struggling to fix her appearance for an audience of zero, Blake doubted that.

Weiss Schnee couldn’t be a spy -- at least, not for anything important. She was too narcissistic, selfish, and prideful for that. She didn’t believe in anything bigger than herself; she didn’t have anything to lose. Not like Blake had. 

Blake turned back to the door. Weiss Schnee wasn’t a spy. She was sure of that. Now she could leave.

Without a parting word, Blake pushed through the door, leaving Weiss with no one but herself and her reflection. The door gently shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only Blake POV this time, since boy, does she think a lot. But next chapter, first semester will finally begin, yay!
> 
> Because my summer break is effectively over, I am conscious of the fact that my rate of production potentially will decrease. Thanks, sweethearts, for your patience and encouragement going forward -- love you all! <3


	11. Lessons on Bandits

Lesson one: don’t call them bandits.

“Oh?” Weiss watched her eyebrows raise in her reflection. “And why not?”

Yang’s voice responded behind her, over the continuous rustling of fabric. “Same reason you don’t call Faunus ‘animals.’” 

The pin of Weiss’s earring missed its hole.

She saw her own eyes blink slowly. “I see,” she said delicately. “I wasn’t aware it was so… controversial.”

“Mm. Which is why I’d appreciate it--” more rustling, a bit of exertion in her voice, “--if you called us tribesmen instead.”

The pin finally found its way through her earlobe, and she fumbled the clasp onto the back. 

_Tribesmen._ She’d never heard that before.

“Will do.”

As tense silences go, Weiss had seen worse. She had the advantage of having something to do (get dressed) and somewhere to look (the mirror), with the added bonus of being allowed to have her back to Yang, thus avoiding eye contact. Plus, the shuffling of whatever Yang was taking so long to do to her uniform distracted from the void in conversation. The only element of additional awkwardness in their silence was the fact that Dusk had left minutes ago to eat breakfast by herself, leaving the impression that Weiss and Yang were avoiding talking to _each other,_ rather than simply choosing not to engage. 

But it hardly mattered. Dusk rarely participated in their conversations anyways. In lieu of social engagement, Weiss could still make use of her time by looking around the room, familiarizing herself with the layout as she pretended to struggle on her other earring.

Their dorm room was designed in traditional Mistralian fashion, with woven-reed-mat flooring and a sliding paper door to the closet. Rather than sleeping on beds, they slept on the floor in rolls of bedding that she could admit were much more comfortable than she had envisioned. There were low tables along the walls that they were expected to use as desks, though she wasn’t sure how to sit at them without anywhere to put her legs. In front of the door, there was a small area where she was expected to deposit her shoes every time she came and went, which was just absurd -- at home, she never had shoes off unless she was in bed. It was simply improper. Yet, while she didn’t know the names of any of these practices, she would abide by them nonetheless. Even if she was a foreigner by definition, it still seemed unbecoming of her to exist in ignorance of the culture she was bound to clash with upon attending Haven Academy.

It was only a leisurely forty-five seconds, according to the clock in the corner of Weiss’s scroll, before Yang spoke again.

“Alright, I’m done,” she said. “How do I look?”

Weiss looked over her shoulder. She didn’t know why she was surprised to find that Yang wore the uniform well, filling out the somewhat boxy blazer adequately despite its stiff material. In comparison with Weiss’s own presentation, Yang arguably matched better with the grey color palette solely because of how the red in her eyes caught onto the matching silk of the breast pocket lining. The only thing out of place was the orange cloth tied around Yang’s left thigh. It seemed like a dress code violation, in Weiss’s opinion. But she wasn’t stupid: if Yang wore it with both her combat outfit and her uniform, it must have some sort of sentimental value, like her tiara, or (probably) Dusk’s bow. She wouldn’t knock her for wearing it now -- it would make her look like a hypocrite.

“Very nice,” she complimented, earning a grin from Yang. She straightened out her own uniform and rose, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. As she bent down to retrieve her scroll, she noted, with a pleased hum, that they were running perfectly on time to head to breakfast before their first class. A good first win as team leader, in her eyes. 

Probably in Winter’s eyes, too. Her pride inflated.

She turned back to Yang, clasping her hands behind her back and puffing out her chest. “Then, are we all ready to go?” she asked, raising her chin.

“Hang on a minute!” came Crimson’s voice from the closet.

Ah. That’s why things had been going well. She forgot about Crimson.

With a sharp turn to her left, Weiss glared at the paper door concealing Crimson. “You’ve been taking too long to change.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that this uniform takes so long to put on!” Crimson objected, punctuated by growls and accompanied by rustling. “These… freaking… _buttons…”_

Crimson’s mouth produced noises akin to a hand-crank pencil sharpener.

“Need a hand?” Yang offered -- ever the altruist, Weiss figured, even for a bandit.

_Oh, tribesman._

_Tribesman._

_Tribesssssman._

The guttural noises of displeasure continued amongst unintelligible muttering in response, although Weiss was fairly certain she parsed “death before dishonor” at some point.

With that, Crimson surpassed “eye-rolling annoyance” and entered “genuine problem” territory. At this rate, Weiss’s hard-earned earliness would be spent.

“Crimson,” she called, “if you’re not decent, we can leave for breakfast without you.”

“What?!” Crimson shrieked, making Weiss flinch. “I’m decent! Look, see?” She flung the closet door open so fast that it bounced against the doorframe. Sure enough, she was fully-clothed in her grey uniform.

_Darn._ She wore it better too. Extra-darn for the red hair matching the breast pocket.

“Then what’s the problem?” Yang asked.

“THIS!” Crimson exclaimed, shoving her arms out towards them. Dangling off her wrists were the open sleeves of her shirt, the cuffs unfastened.

Weiss stepped forward in horror and grabbed her left sleeve. “You dolt! You’ve been wasting time just trying to fasten buttons?”

Crimson tried to jerk her arm away, but Weiss clamped her fingers tighter onto the cuff of Crimson’s shirt. “Hey, what are you -- get off me!”

“Hold still,” she hissed through her teeth.

Crimson’s resistance simmered with a grumble, allowing Weiss to flip her limp wrist over and access the buttons. Grab, slip, push, one done. Grab, slip, push, finished. Within seconds, both cufflinks were fastened. 

She sighed in exasperation before dropping her arm to reach for the other. She found that Crimson’s right arm was in the middle of rubbing her eye, as it usually was. 

Weiss cleared her throat.

Crimson continued her rubbing, none the wiser, creasing the sleeve of her jacket.

“Crimson.”

She paused her rubbing, looking down. “Oh.” She chuckled weakly before surrendering her arm. “Sorry.”

Weiss went to work buttoning her sleeve. “Why do you wipe your eye with your sleeve?” she criticized. “It’s gross.”

“Um, what?” Yang disagreed from behind her.

“Yeah, no it’s not,” Crimson affirmed. “What else would I use?”

Weiss was only minorly affronted by that remark. “Haven’t you ever heard of _handkerchiefs?”_

Crimson snorted. “Oh, look at me, the businessman that has _breast pockets_ for _linen_ squares of fabric to sneeze into.”

Weiss paused, then dropped her arm. “You… _do_ have a breast pocket.”

Crimson’s expression faltered. She looked down at her jacket.

“Well I don’t have a handkerchief, either.”

Weiss sighed. This was what she was sentenced to: years of this girl stealing her time, her patience, and even her handkerchiefs.

From her own breast pocket, with no small amount of passive-aggressive flourish, Weiss produced her own handkerchief. She had brought to Mistral four new, pressed, pristine, monogrammed silk handkerchiefs, and now it would be down to three. She felt almost sorry for the thing as she held the condemned cloth out to Crimson and looked away.

“I haven’t used it yet, so don’t even bother trying to give it back to me,” she ordered.

Weiss felt Crimson pull the handkerchief from her fingers, gingerly, like it would flap away if she didn’t use a delicate touch.

“Wow,” Crimson sighed. “Thanks, Weiss.”

Weiss struggled to find a note of sarcasm in it. 

She looked back at Crimson, who was patting her eye with the new gift. Her silver eye blinked rapidly in wonder as she pulled it away from her face. “Thanks,” Crimson repeated. Again, Weiss found herself a little impressed by how convincingly sincere she sounded.

Then, Weiss watched Crimson stuff the expensive handkerchief down into her breast pocket and cringed. She didn’t know what she expected.

Weiss shook off the moment by turning around sharply, nearly catching Crimson in the wake of her ponytail.

“Anything else?” she asked.

Both Yang and Crimson stood still, watching her expectantly. The silence was sweet to her.

Ah, to be team leader, when all wait on your command.

“Then, to breakfast,” she declared.

Lesson two: they make enemies.

Blake was not a morning person. She could roll out of bed just fine, and have her body walk around and do things, but her idea of living her best life involved never doing anything important before 10 o’clock. 

This is why she was devastated to learn that Team WYCD was part of the morning combat training cohort.

She was especially upset on this first day of school for having gone through all the trouble of making the pilgrimage out to the public bathroom to change into her uniform in a too-small stall that had nowhere dry to put her nightgown just so that she could put on her bow in private -- only to then have to change into her gear for the syllabus day, when they probably wouldn’t even be fighting. 

To make matters worse, her decision to split from her team and eat breakfast alone backfired, as she had now changed and arrived at the first level of the training center thirty minutes before class, forcing her to loiter suspiciously outside the locked doors.

There were two ways to look at this. Fortunately, the rest of her team arrived ten minutes before class, no doubt due to Weiss’s militant punctuality. Unfortunately, by the time they emerged from the locker room, their conversation had turned into yet another quarrel.

“I just don’t see a lot of accurate portrayals in the media,” Weiss was explaining as she approached Blake’s station by the doors. “No one _hates_ bandits, they just don’t know any good ones for reference.”

_Oh, great,_ Blake thought, preparing to tune out. _Weiss being bigoted. Like I need to hear more of that._

“Ehhh,” Yang began. “One, stop it with the ‘bandit’ thing. Tribesmen. Two, the idea that there’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ tribes just reinforces the idea that tribes’ cultures are evil, not the people in them.”

Blake felt her ears wanting to perk up. She kept a neutral face, looking down at nothing in particular on her scroll, but couldn’t help but recognize her own thoughts on the Faunus in Yang’s argument.

But she knew it was pointless. Little more could be gleaned from their conversation than the facts Blake already knew: that Schnees had no respect for anyone but themselves, and that Yang was naïve to think she could do anything to change that. She let herself tune out.

She noted that Crimson had remained silent throughout this argument. She snuck a glance over to her supposed ally, who sat against the wall a few paces away with her knees drawn to her chest. She looked more bored than anything else, scratching at a seam in the wooden floor. Blake could relate. 

Blake checked her scroll. They still had nine minutes left until the class officially began. At this point, the waiting game became a matter of how many teams would show up before their professor did. Six of the twelve first-year teams trained in each session, so excluding Team WYCD, they awaited five more.

The first to arrive was no surprise at all. 

“Oh my gosh, who would’ve thought we were in the same class?” Crimson squealed. “This is so exciting!”

“Yes,” Cinder responded stiffly.

On some level, Blake felt bad for Crimson. Based on their limited interactions, Blake doubted that Cinder was particularly warm to her underlings in private. Something about Crimson’s overly-enthusiastic greetings and glittering eye tipped Blake off that Crimson may have taken this mission as an opportunity to pretend her and Cinder were friends. 

It made her sad, in a way she wasn’t quite okay with looking in the face.

After some minutes of stilted small talk, Team CMNE managed to excuse themselves to sit on the other side of the doors. Blake’s eyes followed them until they were seated, and were surprised to make a moment of contact with Neo’s gaze.

A guilty image of Neo in a towel flashed through her mind. _Right, that happened._

She began to look away before Neo, vastly superior in nonverbal communication, flared her eyelids in a way that demanded _Stop right there, coward, and look at me!_

So Blake did.

_Forget everything you saw._

Blake nodded.

Neo smiled sweetly and looked away, ending their conversation.

Blake shivered. It seemed she _did_ have some respect for the girl, when threatened.

Three teams exited the locker room in quick succession as the clock approached class time. While the rest of her team talked amongst themselves, Blake perused the forming crowd that had begun to mingle. Some heads she recognized from the initiation lineup. Most, she didn’t. It took her a moment to realize it, it feeling so natural, but it dawned on her that it wasn’t really their hair that she was interested in.

From what a few investigative glances could tell her, there were no other Faunus in the class.

That was normal, for Mistral. She’d been in situations before where she was the only Faunus -- most of them in more visible circumstances. In good company, it was hardly any different from her usual level of alienation -- nothing to sneeze at.

However, she would not consider the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company “good company.”

A mechanical click drew Blake’s attention to the doors, where one had opened. A head poked through the doorway that Blake took a moment to recognize: it was that of the golden-robed woman giving instructions at orientation. 

The chatter died down as students took note. The woman stood back, pulling the door completely open, and gestured inside.

Blake and Crimson got to their feet as a vortex of students funneled into the door. Weiss abandoned her conversation with Yang, mixing into the stream of students.

Blake sighed, and resigned herself to entering the room.

The facility was larger than Blake had expected, being on top of a mountain and all. Beyond the two sets of bleachers near the entrance stretched at least 1,000 square feet of completely open floor, only obstructed by small consoles that periodically dotted the perimeter. The foam mats that made up the arena floor were stamped with -- Blake took a moment to count -- a dozen enormous Mistralian crests, which Blake assumed marked the bounds of smaller fighting rings.

“Have a seat on the bleachers,” carved the woman’s voice through the chatter.

Blake followed Crimson, who followed Yang who followed Weiss, up to the third row before sitting down on the metal stands. The crowd settled in a similar fashion, one team to each row, which prompted an uncomfortable silence to descend onto the crowd as the creaking of steel beams came to rest.

Blake swept her eyes over to Team CMNE, who sat in the very back of the other stand. Cinder sat with her chin on her palm, her elbow on her knee. Now _that_ was the posture of a truly agendaless, and probably bored, person.

Who could blame her? This class would be childs’ play for her.

“It appears that we’re missing one team,” the professor said, looking between the body of students and her scroll with drawn brows. “Tardy, then. We’ll just have to start without them.”

She closed her scroll and folded her hands in front of her, casting a level look over her students. Her green eyes cast an inviting sensation, a regard of benign curiosity. It was a welcome feeling.

“My name is Professor Jade,” she declared, with an invisible smile. “Before we begin, I’d like to congratulate all of you for arriving at my class on time. I know the first day can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you are new to the Kingdom and might be experiencing jet lag.”

That provoked a chuckle from the crowd, which was returned with a smile. Blake did not laugh.

She continued. “Now, the first thing I’d like us to do is--”

“WE’RE HERE!”

The doors flew open as four boys burst into the room, practically falling over themselves to make it across the threshold like it was the finish line for a three-legged race. Blake’s eyebrows raised with the ears atop her head and the heat in her face, utterly shocked to recognize the boy in the lead as none other than the blonde Faunus that had, as she now recalled, winked at her at the start of initiation.

He stood up with his hands on his hips, tail swishing wildly as he struggled to catch his breath. The rest of his teammates, including one she recognized as Mr. Electric Blue Hair from the starting line, followed suit.

“We’re here,” the Faunus boy repeated, panting. “Hi.”

Professor Jade blinked at them. “Good morning. Please have a seat.”

The Faunus nodded, waving along his team as they filed into the front row of the bleachers -- right in front of Team WYCD.

Blake watched his tail, curling and uncurling energetically. It was definitely a monkey’s tail, no question -- much too prehensile for a cat. 

It sank in.

_There’s a Faunus in my class._

She surveyed the students. All the eyes were definitely on him, skimming over any of his late compatriots. As she expected. What a terrible first impression to make as a Faunus -- at Haven of all places. _He must be so nervous._

But then, she looked back at him. No, he was just sitting there, bouncing his knee, not out of anxiousness, but out of excitement. His eyes weren’t on the floor, but on the professor, ready for instruction. His tail flicked idly, openly -- it didn’t coil in tight towards his body.

_What is wrong with him?_

Professor Jade did her best to continue, surreptitiously checking what Blake was sure to be the time on her scroll before clearing her throat and speaking.

“Today, while I set up our attendance roster for future exercises, I want you to partner up and spar with someone not on your team.” 

Groans sounded from some other teams. Blake thought it was rather telling that no objections were heard from her own. Although, she was also somewhat inclined to complain -- it was a bothersome thing, meeting people.

She glanced over to Team CMNE, the only plausible candidates for this exercise. None of them looked in her direction. She briefly bemoaned her existence.

“You’ll have plenty of time to fight alongside your teammates this semester,” Professor Jade assured them. “Today, however, is your chance to familiarize yourself with this facility, increase your number of allies, and warm up to morning combat training.” She opened her scroll and tapped something. “I’ve just sent to you all a document establishing Haven Academy’s guidelines for combat conduct. Please review this before you engage in today’s session.”

Jade’s head turned towards Blake, startling her before she realized that Crimson’s hand was raised.

“Yes?”

“Uh, I have a combat exemption from the nurse,” Crimson said. “So, what should I…?”

“Ah, yes, you must be Crimson -- Nurse Peach sent me your information,” Jade acknowledged. She turned to the rest of the class. “In order to keep the teams balanced, would anyone like to accompany Crimson to the infirmary?”

“Wait, now?” Crimson squeaked. “But I have an appointment--”

Jade looked back at her with a fierce smile. “I want to see my fighters combat-ready as soon as possible. If you tell Peach that I sent you, I assure you, you won’t run into any trouble.”

“I’ll go with her.”

Heads turned. Blake found Cinder raising her hand.

Jade nodded at her. “Thank you for volunteering. You’ll find a directory map just outside this building. Feel free to change back into your uniforms.”

Cinder put her hand down and stood up. She sent Crimson a muted glare and jerked her head towards the door.

Crimson got up at once. She scampered off to the end of the bleachers without so much as a second glance towards her teammates. Yang put up a hand in farewell that went unacknowledged.

“Now, with that being taken care of,” Jade continued as Crimson and Cinder made their exit, “stand up, find a partner, and get to an open space.”

There was a terrible creaking, thundering sound as twenty-two people all got to their feet on the bleachers simultaneously. 

“Hey.”

_Well, that took no time at all._

Blake turned to find the electric-blue-haired boy, part of the team that had burst in late, standing on the bleacher row below them. He put his foot on the seat and propped his elbow up on his knee. She was disappointed to find him leaning towards Weiss with casual charm.

Blake rolled her eyes. His cocked eyebrow and devilish smile were sure clues that this particular boy thought he was “all that.” Which she knew wasn’t true, from yesterday’s display of his apparent hydrophobia.

Weiss raised her eyebrows, turning towards him. “Hello there.”

_Oh no, is she falling for it?_

“Name’s Neptune,” he said. “Wanna partner up?”

Weiss smiled, mostly to herself. She offered her hand. “Weiss. And I would be happy to.”

Blake shook her head.

He took her hand, and rather than shaking it, he raised it to his lips and pecked her knuckles. Weiss gasped and giggled, snatching back her hand but clearly being most furiously charmed by the gesture.

Yang turned to Blake and made a gagging gesture. Blake tried hard not to smile, she really did.

As they watched their team leader get whisked away, Blake felt someone tap her shoulder, and she turned. Her eyes widened upon meeting those of the blonde monkey Faunus. 

Maybe she _should’ve_ read into that wink.

He also stood on the row below them, but did not attempt the gambit of posing and smirking. Instead, he genuinely smiled, with a childishness to his grin that caused her brain to register him as essentially harmless. 

“I see my buddy made off with your leader,” he said. “So… what’re your guys’s names?”

“Yang Branwen,” Yang offered. “This is Dusk, and we’re on Team Wicked. What about you, Mr. Tardy?” she asked playfully.

He held his hands in front of him. “Hey, we were no more than a minute late,” he defended. “And in Vacuo, where I’m from, you don’t let the clock rule you.”

It suddenly made sense. _That’s why you were so comfortable being late,_ Blake realized. _Don’t you know you can give all Faunus a bad name doing that here?_

“The name is Sun Wukong,” he said, placing his hands on his hips. He turned to Blake. “I was hoping I could partner with you, Dusk.”

Her spine turned rigid. “Me?”

“Sounds good!” Yang said. “I’ll go find someone else.”

Before Blake could say anything in her defense, Yang turned and walked off the end of the bleachers.

Blake returned to Sun, who was still smiling at her. Her brain still didn’t interpret him as a threat, but between this and the wink…

She deadened her face. “What do you want?”

“To talk,” he replied.

_Whoa._ The haste in his reply jarred her, though she didn’t let it surface on her face. 

Her suspicion returned.

“Why?”

He glanced to the side -- inconspicuously checking for eavesdroppers. Blake’s suspicion flared. He leaned in.

_“I know your secret,”_ he whispered.

“YOU!”

The exclamation was shortly followed by an astoundingly loud _SMASH,_ the impact shaking the bleachers Blake and Sun stood on, nearly knocking her off her feet. Her disorientation increased tenfold when she realized someone had -- no, _Yang_ had been slammed into the side of the bleachers, at full force! Thrown, even!

“We’ll talk at lunch, I guess,” Sun said quickly, not that Blake was listening.

Yang shook herself and leapt to her feet, engaging the blades on her gauntlets as she blinked away the shock to her body. From within the crowd burst a light-haired student, flying at Yang with rage in her eyes. Blake was about to cry out to her teammate when Yang threw herself out of the way, rolling onto the combat floor just as her attacker crashed into the bleachers where she stood. The crowd of students on the floor stumbled backwards, trying to clear the area as the girl attacking Yang redirected her course, running full-throttle towards her with her fists curled.

“Stop!” Yang shouted, right before being blown back several feet by one of the girl’s fists connecting with her stomach.

“You took--” the girl made several jabs towards her, each blocked by Yang “--EVERYTHING FROM ME!”

Blake’s head swiveled as one of the other students broke through the crowd and ran towards the brawl, arm outstretched.

“Arslan, stop it!”

The attacker spared a moment to shoot a glare towards her presumed teammate, before stomping her foot into the ground and producing a shockwave that sent her teammate flying backwards through the air. Blake barely reacted in time to leap back before she landed on the bleachers with a cry of pain, sending gasps through the audience. Blake found Weiss’s eyes, just as blindsided and fearful as her own.

The attacker turned to resume her assault on Yang. “I’LL KILL YOU!”

She got one more step towards Yang before she halted, hands flying up to clutch her head. A glowing, golden circlet appeared around her head like a crown of thorns, pulsing as she grabbed at it to no avail. Yang stood still, gaping as she watched her opponent silently sink to her knees between her fists. To Blake, it resembled Crimson’s meltdowns of pain during initiation, but with less wailing, which was somehow worse.

Murmurs disturbed the silence of the room as Professor Jade stepped forth from the crowd, her hand extended and her gaze severe. She looked between the attacker, and Yang, and the girl on the bleachers, and after a moment, she curled her fingers into a fist. 

The golden ring vanished, and the assailant was released, gasping with relief on the floor.

Jade maintained her venomous stare as her hand returned to her side.

“You should have read the guidelines.”

Lesson three: they make friends.

It felt _incredibly_ awkward to Crimson to not make conversation when someone was staring into your eye with a flashlight. 

She had just sort of assumed that all doctors conducted checkups like Watts did for her when she was younger: muttering ominously, complimenting odd body parts like her knees or ears for being in peak condition, threatening to have a Sabyr bite into her arm just to show how pointless a fear of needles could be. She wasn’t sure if he meant to make her laugh, but she always would regardless.

Now, sitting on the examination table in dead silence with Nurse Peach less than an inch from her face, she felt the urge to speak like she felt the urge to cough. Nurse Peach seemed to be a pleasant enough woman, with kind crinkles next to her eyes and flyaway pink hair that had begun to grey. They had already met yesterday after she woke up from initiation, making a friendly and very comforting first impression. Crimson had no doubts that even an inelegant attempt at conversation would be met with warmth.

But Cinder had been clear (and forceful) when she stated that _“I will do all of the talking.” Okay, Cinder, you usually do. “We’re only here for the prescription and because of that stupid doctor’s note.” Yes, Cinder, I was there._ Cinder was treating her even worse than as if she was incompetent -- she was treating her like a toddler! Even now, her usual death glare hunted Crimson from across the room, as if she could read her rebellious thoughts. _Just try to say something dumb,_ her eyes growled, _I dare you._

Thankfully, Nurse Peach pulled away from her face in less than ten seconds and didn’t seem too displeased by the situation. But she wasn’t smiling. That was a little worrisome.

“So, Miss Silver,” Peach said.

Her look wasn’t scrutinizing, but Crimson still sat a bit straighter.

“Just to confirm: you’re not a Faunus?”

Crimson glanced behind Peach at Cinder.

Cinder widened her eyes in exasperation, then reluctantly shook her head.

Crimson nodded.

“Mmkay… and you have no known allergies?”

Cinder nodded. Crimson nodded.

“And these symptoms only began about five days ago?”

Crimson nodded all by herself.

“Then I only have one more thing to ask you.”

Peach folded her arms in a way that Crimson did not perceive as casual.

“Might this have to do with your other eye?”

Crimson froze.

“We’re sure it doesn’t,” Cinder intervened, and Crimson allowed herself to relax a fraction. “She lost her eye in an accident as a child. There’s no reason she’d be experiencing issues related to it now.”

Peach tapped a finger to her chin, then asked Crimson, “What kind of accident? Grimm-related?”

Cinder didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. But she was just an infant -- she doesn’t remember it.”

Peach raised an eyebrow. “And you do, Miss Fall?”

Cinder’s look soured. “Of course not.”

Peach clucked a laugh. “I’m only kidding. Now, Crimson,” she said, and Crimson sat up, “I can safely say that you don’t have any kind of infection.”

Considering Crimson had already self-diagnosed her condition, she didn’t find this shocking.

“However,” Peach continued, “I can’t think of any other reason why you would have such a severe reaction to the presence of Grimm other than a suppressed trauma response.”

 _Well, there_ is _another reason._

Cinder shook her head. “That’s not right. Crimson is--”

“Any discussion of what Crimson is or is not I shall only hear from Crimson herself,” Peach stated firmly, turning a piercing eye on Cinder.

The raised voice had nowhere to echo. Cinder made no movement to respond. She had felt the authority in Peach’s gaze. Crimson felt it too. Slowly, Cinder resigned herself to the back of her seat.

Peach turned back to Crimson and smiled. Crimson felt herself wanting to retreat to the other end of the examination table.

“Miss Silver,” she stated again, “what do you think?”

Crimson blinked hard, searching for the words. Lying was never a good option for her. Telling the truth in this case was impossible.

 _Hedge it out,_ she told herself. _Say things vaguely. Like Salem! Say things like Salem._

“Um...” She glanced towards Cinder, whose charged expression indicated that she was bracing herself for the worst. She looked back at Peach.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she started. “I… grew up in an area where we saw Grimm all the time, but I’ve never experienced this before. Plus, my pain was physical, not emotional.”

_Not quite “Salem” enough, but okay -- now ask about the prescription!_

Crimson pressed onwards, seeing no change in Peach’s face. “I don’t know what to do about the Grimm response, but having normal medications for the itchiness and pain will at least help me recover.”

That seemed to do the trick. Peach nodded thoughtfully, seeming convinced. Better yet, when Crimson looked over to Cinder, she didn’t look totally infuriated. 

“Alrighty then,” Peach said. “Let me pop out to see what I have in the cupboard for you to leave with today, and then I’ll write you a prescription for something more long-term that you can pick up at the school pharmacy.” She clasped her hands together and tilted her head. “I _am_ going to write you a Grimm Studies exemption to excuse you from class when specimens are present.”

Cinder sat forward. “That’s fine.”

_Aaand she’s back._

“Awesome!” Peach confirmed. “Then I’ll be back in a couple minutes. Just sit tight.”

With that, the nurse shuffled out of the room, leaving Crimson and Cinder to themselves.

It was still quiet, but a type of quiet Crimson was used to: Crimson minding herself while Cinder looked broodily off into the distance. Cinder liked to pretend she was Crimson’s “superior” in Salem’s chain of command, and most of the time, Crimson was content to let her. Talking to Cinder almost never improved Crimson’s day, so if she didn’t want to talk, that was fine with her.

A droplet spilled from Crimson’s eye onto her cheek, and she realized she hadn’t wiped her eye in a while. Enough reminders from Weiss over breakfast this morning had gotten Crimson to remember that she actually had a handkerchief now, prompting her to retrieve it from the breast pocket of her uniform. She uncrumpled the fabric and used it to delicately dab the moisture off her face.

“Where did you get that?”

Cinder’s voice made her pause. She looked at the item in her hand. “What, this? Weiss gave it to me this morning.”

“Clearly,” Cinder said. “It’s monogrammed.”

“Mhm,” Crimson affirmed, sponging up the excess liquid on her waterline.

She dreaded the look of contempt that came to Cinder’s face.

“Do you and her get along?”

Crimson wheezed out a laugh. “Me and Weiss? Yeah, like, not at all.”

A pause followed, in which Cinder’s eyes narrowed microscopically and she pressed her lips together. Then, she commented, “Good. You can’t be friends with them.”

Crimson had an entire conversation with herself in the instant that followed. _I can’t? Of course not. Why not? They’re supposed to die. Why? You’re supposed to kill them. Why? Salem told you to. Why? Shut up! Okay._

She was shocked, almost to amusement. It might have been the first time she had had that conversation so distinctly. But with the speed at which it transpired, it was certainly not the first time she had had it at all.

She didn’t know what to make of that.

“I know,” she said. 

It didn’t sound convincing enough.

Cinder noticed. Her head turned to face Crimson straight on, like a viper coiling in preparation to strike.

“If you’re not sure,” she said, in that cool, low tone of hers Crimson hated, “then you can ask the part of you that is.”

Even mentioning it sent chills across Crimson’s skin. She felt something that wasn’t herself blink.

“Go on,” Cinder prodded. She smirked. “Look me in the eye and tell me you won’t waste my time fantasizing about something as foolish as _friendship.”_

Crimson swallowed. The thing in her head twitched. It burned.

“Fine,” she hissed.

She set down the handkerchief on her lap. Slowly, tensely, her hands crept up towards her face. There was no tremor in her fingers. The cuffs of her shirt were unbuttoned.

One side of her face pulsed as her fingertips made contact with her skin. Cinder held her gaze steadily, eagerly as she found the clasp of her eyepatch.

She sighed.

She popped the clasp.

The writhing matter had no problems pushing the eyepatch off itself, pressing it into her hand with a puff of foul smoke as it sought the light. She was unable to see out of the amber, lidless orb that glowed in her left eye socket, but it looked around all the same. When it saw Cinder, the chelicerae parted with a hiss to allow its venomous fangs to snap forth, reaching fruitlessly, mindlessly for human flesh. Cinder sat up, her smirk vanishing. 

The Grimm parasite struggled, its inky flesh tugging against where it was welded to Crimson’s skin. But its efforts had weakened since Salem first spawned it in her skull. Its faint resistance now was painless compared to the way it had reeled and seethed, desperately trying to rip itself out of her or devour anything that moved. The best she could do was cover it with her eyepatch, as it seemed to lie dormant when in darkness. 

But until it absorbed the power of a Maiden, it would never truly rest.

She looked Cinder in the eye. Cinder seemed to regret her order, her face having turned pale and her eyes wide with barely-disguised horror. That awakened some dark sort of satisfaction in Crimson’s mind: seeing Cinder afraid of her, sensing her nervousness. Or perhaps, that was the parasite talking. Crimson didn’t bother to distinguish the two.

A smirk had formed on her own face, like she had stolen it off of Cinder’s. She leaned towards her, her right eye glinting while her left tried to lash ever closer.

“I can’t be friends with them,” Crimson said. “How could I?”

Number four: they avoid conflict.

“I’m really, _really_ sorry about that.”

“Oh, _are_ you?” Weiss said, folding her arms. 

Yang closed her eyes and sighed.

“She can come tell us that herself, then,” Weiss continued. “Besides, she owes _you_ an apology as well. Yang wasn’t the only one she threw.”

“We already figured that out,” Reese said, holding up her hands. “They’re just bruises -- nothing serious. I just came over because you’re owed an explanation, and I don’t think she’ll be talking with you any time soon.”

Yang had reached her limit with Weiss trying to insert herself into every single goddamn conversation today, so she said, “Then sit down.”

There was a pause as Reese looked to Weiss, who huffed and turned her head. The two of them slid into seats at the cafeteria table, Weiss to Yang’s left and Reese across from them.

The silence continued between them. Yang blew on her noodles.

“Where are your other teammates?” Reese inquired, in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

“Where are _yours?”_ Weiss countered.

Yang grit her teeth.

“Dusk said she had someone to meet,” Yang explained, though saying it out loud, it sounded doubtful. “And Crimson’s… hanging out with Team Carmine, I guess, I don’t know.” Yang folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. “But I really want to know about your teammate now, if you please.”

Reese nodded in understanding, but sighed.

“Well, while we were pulled out of class, Arslan told us she was raised in a rural Animan village,” Reese narrated. “She wanted to become a Huntress because, when she was ten, her village was destroyed... by…”

She trailed off, looking down at the table, and Yang knew exactly what she meant.

“A tribe raid,” Yang finished. She figured as much. She continued blowing on her noodles.

“By _your_ tribe,” Reese emphasized, leaning forward. “And I told her that, well, that was years ago, so you couldn’t have been there, and your tribe might have changed your ways -- stuff like that -- but she…”

Reese cocked her head like she was considering whether to say it. Yang finished for her.

“She has a vendetta,” Yang guessed. “Become a huntress, disband the Branwen tribe.”

Reese nodded.

“So, wait,” Weiss interrupted. “Yang, your tribe... destroys villages? _Kills_ people?”

Yang’s brows furrowed. Her voice was different. Her eyes sought Weiss’s face -- and widened in betrayal at what they saw. 

Fear. She saw fear on Weiss’s face. Weiss watched her with sudden trepidation, with the distant, repulsed look that she saw from everyone else at this school. Where was the girl that had curtseyed and smiled at her when they first met? Didn’t that girl know their way of life?

Or did she know, and blindly refuse to see it?

She knew she had to give her an answer either way.

“There are some goods we need that we cannot find in the wild,” Yang began. She chose each word meticulously. “If we come to a settlement asking for medicine, they’ll turn us away -- chase us, even -- because they see us as thieves. But if the survival of my people depends on the means of others, then we have no choice. We simply can’t rely on the kindness of strangers.”

There was a pause. 

Yang knew their entire friendship depended on that pause.

“Well, of course you can’t,” Weiss said. “They see you as thieves.”

 _Could she…?_ “Exactly.”

“No, but because you are!” Weiss accused, flying to her feet. 

Yang closed her eyes. _Damn._

“You can’t just pretend that their lives aren’t as important as your own!” Weiss tried to keep her voice quiet enough to not cause a disturbance, but it was pointless -- heads around them were already turning.

And there was nothing Yang could do about it. She could try to placate Weiss, to reach a resolution without harming the peace, but Weiss in all her stubbornness would never back down on something as controversial as this. And if she took up her own side of the argument -- well, that’s a scene, that’s ostracization, that’s negative emotions, that’s everything her mother warned her would lead to no good, that _always_ led to no good in her tribe, that led to _Grimm._

The third option Yang didn’t see coming was Reese shooting up from her seat, hollering, “Oh, yeah? Big talk coming from the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company!”

_What’s that got to do with anything?_

But it seemed to have an effect. Weiss drew her hand to her chest with a gasp. “How dare you!”

“No, how dare _you!”_ Reese pressed, and Yang heard the excitement jump in the strangers around them. “You think them doing what they need to survive is theft when your company is out there _every day_ stealing the lives of _thousands_ of Faunus and -- and lower class citizens like _my family,_ just to make a profit?” 

_What? What is she talking about?_

A chorus of _ooh_ s and astonished laughter ripped through the clot of students that had turned around in their seats to witness this showdown. The eyes once screwed into the back of Yang’s head now fixed themselves on Weiss, pinning her in place with their silent jeers. Yang could see outrage cemented in paralyzed edges on Weiss’s face -- but floating under the surface, there was terror in those eyes.

Something rang inside Yang; an alarm, a warning siren calling out from deep inside her instincts. _The Grimm are coming._

“Enough,” Yang barked. She stood.

The crowd rose still, a black horde on the horizon, but Yang kept her red eyes trained on the floor. Her mother would sneer at her for her cowardice. _You’re practically begging for the humiliation._

Maybe. But it wasn’t something she’d force on her teammate.

She shot a glare at Reese. The girl seemed taken aback at her intervention.

“Come on, Weiss,” Yang said softly. “We’re leaving.”

She met her eyes. Weiss only blinked at her helplessly, lips parted in wordless speech. The eyes of the crowd had frozen her in place.

Yang reached out and took her hand. “Let’s go.”

She tugged her into motion, leaving Reese and her noodles behind. The eyes tracked them, but she marched on, hand in Weiss’s, eyes ahead.

It wasn’t until after they had left the cafeteria that they came to rest. No more eyes followed them. They’d outrun the Grimm.

She finally turned to look Weiss in the eye.

There were tears now.

It was now or never.

With trust, she let her hand go.

The heiress took a step back. She turned away slightly, to preserve her dignity. Yang could understand that. 

But she didn’t run away. And that was what counted.

Weiss said nothing as she dabbed at her eye with her sleeve.

Yang broke the silence. “I thought you said that was gross?”

Weiss sniffed. “Shut up.”

Yang smiled.

Later, she decided. Later, she’d ask about what the implications of Weiss’s name really meant. But she’d also make sure that, later, she’d give Weiss a better explanation: a whole lesson on bandits.

Maybe this friendship could last after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. FINALLY YOU SEE HER EYE.
> 
> Also, anyone else really like those teams from the Vytal Festival that we never saw again? Catch me using this fic as an opportunity to give Team ABRN the characterization they deserve.
> 
> For those of you that don't know, this month, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo specifically for the WYCD AU! My goal is to publish a chapter every week, continuing with Chapter 12 next Sunday!


	12. Icebreaking

“I know you’re a Faunus.”

_...Oh._

_Okay then._

Blake looked over the edge of the roof. Looked like she wouldn’t need to silence him, after all. And after all the trouble she went through to find the perfect spot for it.

She crossed her arms and regarded Sun. In retrospect, the two hours during which Blake had thought he knew she was an infiltrator seemed rather silly. He was apparently smarter than he looked, if he had immediately seen through her disguise, but not smart enough to put two and two together and _also_ recognize her as Blake Belladonna.

 _Speaking of…_ She furrowed her brows. “How did you figure it out?”

Sun scoffed, looking away. “If you’re worried about other people figuring it out, trust me, you’re in the clear. I only knew because of how you looked at my tail,” Sun explained.

“At initiation?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “You’re the first person to see it and not immediately look like you’ve just stepped into a room with a bad smell.” 

She blinked. “Even your teammates?”

Some aspect of a smile had been present on Sun’s face the entire conversation, but now, the glimmer disappeared.

“Not them,” he admitted. “But I’m not sure if it’ll stay that way.”

She nodded. She was in a similar boat -- only, she would never find out how her teammates really felt. 

It was strange, to feel seen by someone as unlikely as this.

He looked back at her. “I guess that’s why you’re keeping your trait hidden, right? Looks aren’t everything, but it sucks when people take that to mean everything about you.”

“Yeah,” she lied. Well, it wasn’t a _total_ lie. But that wasn’t the point. She hadn’t really been listening; she’d just jumped at the opportunity for him to assign her a reason for the bow, rather than forcing her to make one up herself. She redirected the topic. “If you figured that out, then why don’t you hide yours?”

He shrugged. “It’s nothing like this in Vacuo. I figured this out only after arriving here, and by that point, the cat was already out of the bag.”

Blake remained still, but she felt a drop of sympathy slip through the vice grip she had on her emotions.

This is what she was fighting for. People like Sun.

She was quick to remind herself that that wasn’t her mission right now. 

Blake narrowed her eyes at him.

“So what do you want?”

His tail curled inward, drawing Blake’s gaze only for an instant. He tilted his head.

“What do you mean?”

Blake blinked, unaware that this was a statement one could make clearer. “I mean, you must be after something if you’re telling me this,” she elucidated. “You could have just ignored it, kept it to yourself, never approached me about it.”

These ideas seemed to puzzle him, his expression only deepening with a squinting of his eyes. “Well, yeah, I _coulda,”_ he said, “but what’s the point of that? Us Faunus have to stick together, right?”

She bristled. 

“Then start acting like it.”

_Whoa._

She hadn’t meant to say it like _that._

Sun's eyebrows climbed high on his forehead. “What are you saying?”

She pulled her feelings back into line and looked at him head on. “I’m saying that, if you really want to show some solidarity, you could start by showing up on time.”

The confusion on his face didn’t fade -- in fact, it was joined by a spark of offense. “What does that have to do with anything?” he demanded.

She felt herself stiffen at the rise in his voice. Her rigid spine pulled her head back, but she managed to preserve her unflinching eye contact as she continued.

“You gave people a bit of proof that Faunus have bad character. They’ll take one mistake, and they’ll use it to justify _all_ their hatred of us.” She crossed her arms. “Maybe that’s not how it works in Vacuo, but _here,_ your misbehavior could put _all_ of us at risk.”

Her raised voice echoed off the roof into the sky. After that, silence.

His eyes were blue.

A heavy pressure set in on her chest.

“Maybe,” he said.

She breathed a little.

He relaxed, looking down. His tail once again spurred into motion, waving idly in the light. She eased some tightness in her scalp. Her own ears had flattened against her head, tugging against the bow.

“Maybe,” he repeated. “But I don’t think you should let that rule your life.”

Her gaze remained pointed, but it threw her off. 

_Of course it doesn’t,_ she told herself.

“It doesn’t,” she repeated aloud.

Sun scoffed and turned his head away. He made a lazy pivot and began ambling towards the door that led off the rooftop.

_Just like that?_

She found herself wanting to yell after him. To tell him hey, no, don’t scoff like that, _I was being honest._

“I think you’d look better without the bow,” he called over his shoulder.

She scrambled to respond.

The door shut.

Blake stood alone on the roof.

“I’m sorry, Weiss,” Crimson said solemnly. “But this crosses a line.”

She grabbed one of the packets from Weiss’s arms and shook it vigorously. “HOMEWORK?!” she screeched. “On the first day of school?!”

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. She should have seen this coming.

Crimson apparently wasn’t done. “I’ve never done homework before in my _life,_ how do you expect me to complete a whole--” she tried to flip the pages for emphasis, but failed “-- _novel_ by tomorrow?!”

Weiss pushed that interesting fact aside and informed Crimson, “It’s only fourteen pages,” with a look down her nose. 

She passed the two remaining packets to Yang and Dusk, who regarded them with a much more reasonable level of curiosity. The low ambient light offered by their dorm room’s wall lamps made it more difficult to read the fine text on the packets, yet both Dusk and Yang still tried paging through them, presumably evaluating the number of questions and appreciating the amount of effort it took to make these in just one afternoon. 

Crimson looked helplessly between Weiss and her traitorous comrades. She stammered, struggling for an excuse.

“But this is so invasive!” she spluttered. “You can’t just... ASK us things about ourselves!”

Weiss raised her eyebrows. “I reserve every right to do that. I’m your team leader,” she invoked. “It’s important for me to have as much information on each of you as possible in order to coordinate our combat strategies.”

_And to get information out of you,_ Weiss added bitterly, _because Winter didn’t exactly tell me what I was looking for, so I thought I’d just ask about everything. Thanks, Winter. Is this the kind of info you want? Because this is the kind of info you’re getting._

There was something else, though; a truer reason.

“And…” She lowered her shoulders. “This will help me… better understand all of you.”

_One of you._

She glanced at Yang.

She was startled to find her staring back.

Weiss would never get used to those eyes, especially not when they bored into her. The red vibrated. And always, underneath the red haze, Weiss could perceive anger: a violence that was only kept back by willpower. She hadn’t noticed it before today.

No one had spoken for the several moments that passed between their eyes. 

“Um,” Crimson spoke timidly. “Did something... happen?”

Weiss’s gaze broke off and turned to Crimson. “No,” she said.

It was automatic.

She turned back to Yang. “I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Yang held her eye contact.

“Then so do I.”

Weiss blinked. Yang’s eyeline did not break as she turned the packet around in her hands.

“I don’t feel good about establishing trust like this,” Yang said frankly. “If you want me to fill all this out, then I’ll do it…”

She thrust the packet out towards Weiss. Her eyes betrayed her, looking down at the offering.

“But on the condition that _you_ fill one out too.”

Weiss opened her mouth.

She found nothing in it.

It was fair, wasn’t it? She didn’t have anything to hide. 

Though… there were those more _personal_ questions.

She hadn’t planned on sharing that.

“All of us get to read each others’,” she clarified, looking around at her teammates. 

Yang nodded. Dusk still looked hesitant. Crimson had accepted her fate.

She sighed. Not quite the outcome she was looking for, but it should be fine. It was for fairness’s sake. It was for _truth’s_ sake. She could sacrifice a shred of her dignity if it meant getting closer to the truth.

There were worse things to sacrifice.

“Done,” she decided. She handed the packet back to Yang, who took it easily. “I’ll run out to the library right now and print myself a copy. We’ll all have them done by the end of the day tomorrow, and then anyone can read anyone’s.” 

She looked to her teammates. “Alright?”

“Do I get a condition too?” Crimson asked.

“No.”

Crimson groaned. “Ugh. _Fine,_ I guess I’ll do it.”

“No skipping questions?”

Weiss’s head turned to Dusk. She hadn’t looked up, all focus still poured into inspecting the packet.

“No,” Weiss said. “That would only breed suspicion.”

Dusk hummed. It didn’t sound like one of agreement. A flat note -- a minor accidental.

But she didn’t object. In Dusk language, Weiss considered that assent enough.

Finally, she turned to Yang. She was relieved to find Yang’s eyes on the packet, and not on her soul.

Yang nodded, delicately at first, then more confidently as she lifted her chin and looked at Weiss. 

Those red eyes.

Weiss was still unsure of what lurked underneath.

Cinder considered herself to be in a good mood. Those were rare -- one could mistake them for fronts of pride. Yet looking down at her handiwork on the low desk, admiring the stylish presentation of her twelve pots of nail polish, and hearing the blissful absence of others in the quiet of her dorm room, it was undeniable: Cinder felt content.

Then there was a knock on the door.

It took every ounce of self-restraint in her to not pick up a pot and throw it across the room.

She froze herself in place. If she stayed silent, maybe they would assume everyone was out and leave. It would be true of the rest of her underlings, so there was only a one-in-four chance that that was not the case.

She held her breath.

Another knock.

“Cinder?” Crimson’s muffled voice sounded.

Her eyes bulged. _Oh, hell no._ That was all the more reason to stay silent. Crimson never made Cinder’s good moods better.

“I know you’re in there,” her voice came again. “I really need to talk to you.”

_No, you don’t,_ Cinder willed her to hear telepathically. _Go bother someone else._

“Someone figured us out.”

Cinder threw open the door to reveal a startled Crimson, yanked her inside by her arm, and slammed it shut.

“Who?” she demanded, shaking her. “How do you know this?”

“Yay, I knew that would work!” Crimson celebrated.

The gears turned in Cinder’s head.

She’d been gotten.

“That’s no laughing matter,” she said darkly, releasing Crimson’s arm with a shove.

Crimson giggled. “Eh, it’s a little funny.”

Fuming, Cinder released the ultimate sigh of frustration. She let her look turn poisonous. “Get out.”

She advanced upon her, forcing Crimson to stumble towards the door.

“Hey, heyheyhey wait, this is actually super important though,” Crimson said, tripping against the wall. She held up a packet of printed paper and shoved it at Cinder’s face. “Look.”

Cinder reeled her head back, eyes focusing on the text on the page.

“What is it.”

“Something dumb,” Crimson said, lowering her arm. Cinder clenched her jaw, and she blurted, “But it’s important, I swear. Weiss is having us fill these out so she can learn more about us, and it’s full of questions that I don’t know how to answer, and if I don’t get your help in making things up I’m probably going to screw up so badly I get arrested.”

Cinder blinked. Well, she had to agree on that front. The mission would undoubtedly be put in jeopardy if this was left solely in Crimson’s hands.

Well, her mood was already ruined.

She shut her eyes and sighed in resignation. “Fine.”

Crimson cheered and pranced over to the desk on the opposite side of the door. 

Cinder returned to her seat at her desk. She could feel the headache forming. Looking down at her perfectly arranged workspace, her hopes of spending her afternoon peacefully painting her nails now seemed futile.

Nevertheless, she grabbed the pot of base coat solution. After all, painting her nails was a soothing activity, and she’d likely need all the soothing she could get.

Crimson cleared her throat.

“So, I guess I’ll only ask you about things I for sure don’t know?”

Cinder shook the pot violently, staring forward. “Just read the list.”

“Okay.” There was a pause as Crimson presumably searched the page. “Question one: what is my name?”

Cinder stopped shaking the pot.

It was her fault for giving those vague instructions.

_Shut up._

“Crimson Silver,” she said through gritted teeth, and resumed shaking the pot.

Crimson laughed. “Yeah, that was a real tough one.” Cinder heard the scratching of a pen as she wrote in the response.

Cinder felt the impulse to slam the pot onto the desk. It was glass, so she resisted. But it was tempting.

“Uh, let’s see,” Crimson continued. “Gender?”

Cinder unscrewed the top of the pot and laid her hand flat on the desk. “Female.”

A pause as Crimson filled in the form. “Species?”

“Alright, enough,” Cinder declared, turning her head to glare daggers at Crimson. “You know all this.”

“Yeah, but you told me to read you the questions,” Crimson replied.

_This little--!_

“Read me the ones you actually need my _help_ on,” Cinder instructed through grinding molars. “Got that?”

“Yeah, alright,” Crimson said, her voice climbing an octave. “No need to get upset.”

_Oh, we’re well past that._

Cinder turned back to her nails with a huff.

There was a brief silence. Cinder began her first nail.

“Ooh, here’s a good one,” Crimson said. “What’s my age?”

Cinder paused.

“You don’t know that?”

“Um, no,” Crimson stated, matter-of-factly. “You think Salem threw me birthday parties?”

Cinder blinked a few times.

_Well, neither did her own mother._

She continued painting. “Pick a date for it between November and now.”

Crimson scratched something in. “Why’s that?”

“You won’t have to celebrate it with them.”

A silence. 

“Oh. The attack.”

The silence lingered a few moments longer, before Crimson continued writing.

_Did she just…_

_Forget?_

“But how old am I?”

Cinder was thrust out of her thoughts. She returned her focus to her nails. “When did we meet?”

Crimson scoffed. “You expect me to remember that?”

Cinder ignored her. “Ten years ago?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“You were pretty little back then.” Cinder recalled her round cheeks and thin legs. “No older than five or six.”

“Well, hang on -- what’s the entrance age for first-year students at the Huntsman Academies?”

_Oh. Or that._ It honestly hadn’t occurred to her.

“Seventeen, turning eighteen in their first year.”

“Seventeen, okay. I’ll just say that?”

Cinder thought. She didn’t look seventeen, did she? She was lucky no one had asked _her_ that.

“Fine,” Cinder permitted.

Crimson turned to write it in.

Cinder felt something in the silence. Or, an absence of something.

That was an oddly… _normal_ conversation.

The brush licked slowly across the middle fingernail of her left hand.

Well, the context and content wasn’t normal. 

But, for once, she had sounded like a normal person. 

She moved to the next fingernail.

It was unnerving.

She gave the brush another slow pull.

She kind of wanted to push her luck with it.

“Okayyy…” Crimson sighed.

“Birthplace?”

Immediately: “Vale.”

“Alrighty. Wait, no, I can’t say that.”

Cinder dipped the brush in the pot. “Why?”

“I kinda already told Weiss I was raised outside of the Kingdoms.”

She moved to her thumb. “Then you were born in a Sanus village, in the mountains of Vale.”

“Ooh, interesting,” Crimson said. “I’ll take it.”

_Scratch scratch._

Cinder put the brush back in the pot and began blowing on her left hand.

Crimson scoffed. “Well, this section looks mostly like personal information.”

Cinder kept blowing. _It’s all personal._

“Information about my mother,” Crimson said. “Her name, species, occupation, marital status, and… yeah.”

Cinder nodded, taking it in.

She leaned back. “Name: _Scarlet_ Silver,” she began. “Human. Occupation: former… business executive. Marital status: divorced. Deceased.”

“Wow, you came up with that fast.”

“Practice.”

Crimson took a moment to scribble it in. “Father’s turn.”

_Well that’s easy,_ Cinder thought. “Arthur Silver. Also human. Former tech consultant. Marital status: divorced. Also deceased.”

Crimson took a moment to get it. “So… Watts?”

Cinder leaned back over her desk and picked up the brush in her left hand. “The very same.”

Cinder wasn’t watching Crimson, but there was a pause, and that told her all she needed.

“Anyways,” Crimson continued. “Any siblings?”

“None,” Cinder responded, starting on her first finger.

“That’s fair,” Crimson said.

And just like that, they fell into harmony.

“Height, weight, and… clothing sizes? Well, neither of us know--”

“Five-foot-two, about a hundred and twenty pounds. I don’t remember your measurements off the top of my head but your shoe size is seven and a half.”

Crimson gaped.

Cinder looked up from her nails at the silence. She found Crimson’s astonished expression and deadpanned. “I make your clothes.”

Crimson, speechless, blinked as she turned to fill in the spaces.

“Right. Huh. Thank you,” she managed to say.

Cinder hummed and went back to painting her nails. It was nice to be acknowledged.

“Known allergies.”

“None-- oh, except maybe your eye.”

“And those are, like, seasonal?”

“If that’s reasonable.”

“Well, you tell me.”

“Hmm. ‘Mildly allergic to tree pollen,’ how is that?”

“YOU TELL ME!”

“I’m fully vaccinated, right?”

“How should I know?”

“You seem to know everything about me.”

“I’m making up most of it.”

“Yeah, but… based on things that you were there for.”

“...Still not everything.”

“What color do you think, red or gold?”

“Mmh… ooh, what about that one?”

“This? It’s called ‘terracotta.’”

“Complements your combat outfit, I think.”

“You think so? ...Then that seems appropriate.”

“...what?”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. This one’s just… personal.”

“What. Is it.”

“...sexuality.”

“Then write an answer.”

“Huh? You’re not gonna, y’know, tell me?”

“You don’t need me to, do you?”

“Okay, on to routine, which-- hey _wait a miNUTE!”_

“Quiet. What?”

“Can’t you just use your Semblance to dry your nails?”

“No, the heat melts it off.”

“Okay, your Maiden powers then.”

“...that’s stupid.”

“But you’ve been pausing to blow on your nails this entire time -- can’t you just try it? It’d go a lot faster if you did.”

“I’m not creating a wind vortex inside my dorm room in order to dry my nails!”

“Whoa, hey, not a whole _vortex,_ just a light breeze! Like, blowing speed.”

_“...Blowing speed?”_

“Mhm.”

“...I’ve never tried that.”

“No time like the present!”

“And finally, the combat section,” Crimson introduced. Cinder lay on her back in the middle of the room, idly waving her fingers through the moving air as she watched Crimson dramatically flip to the final page of the packet. The paper was slightly disturbed by the breeze. The flames that flickered out of Cinder’s eye spilled harmlessly onto the woven floor.

“Semblance,” Crimson declared. “Oh, well I know this.”

“Does it give any specifics?” Cinder asked.

“No, it’s not broken down, it just says… ‘Describe in clear and complete detail the function of your Semblance, including its Aura expense, visual cues, potential developments, and exceptions.’ And then a whole bunch of lines.”

“Okay,” Cinder said. “Answer it.”

Crimson nodded, and put her pen to the paper.

She muttered to herself as she wrote, phrases staggering out of her lips like “lack of physical form” and “dematerialize after three minutes” and other things that Cinder not once had to comment on. She dried her nails, Crimson wrote her answers, and there was peace in the room. 

It was a pleasant surprise.

“Okay, that’s done…” Crimson said, scanning over the rest of the sheet. Her eyes did not rise to meet Cinder’s. “Then there’s weapon, fighting style, Dust -- why is that its own category? -- training… Oh! That’s something,” Crimson said, finally looking towards Cinder. Cinder found herself readjusting her position to meet her gaze.

“Did I attend combat school?” Crimson read, eyes dashing between the sheet and Cinder’s face. “If not, how did I receive my combat training?”

Cinder didn’t have to think long. Her head rolled to straighten her neck. “You did _not_ attend combat school,” she said, staring at the ceiling as she wiggled her fingers, “so you were trained by various family members -- uncles, cousins -- that have combat experience.”

Crimson snorted. “So you’re my cousin now?”

Cinder rolled her head to the side, finding Crimson’s eyes again. “Is there a problem with that?”

“No!” Crimson said quickly. “It’s actually pretty accurate.”

Cinder nodded at the affirmation. “Then write it in.”

Crimson returned her nod and obeyed.

_Pretty accurate._

Cinder admired her nails.

_Easy for a daughter of Salem to say._

Yang was tense.

No, that wasn’t even _close_ to describing it. Yang _had been_ tense. She’d been tense since lunch yesterday. She’d been tense when she woke up this morning. She’d been tense at dinner when seldom a word had been spoken, tense when she’d excused herself, tense when she’d sat down in the library to fill this damn thing out. And reading its contents certainly didn’t make her any less tense, before you ask.

And she was tense now, after returning to her dorm room and changing, as she slid the closet door back and entered the silence.

Weiss looked up from her desk. Her hair was down, spilling over the back of her nightgown. She didn’t smile.

“Yang,” she greeted drily. “Are you ready?”

“Are we _finally_ doing this?” Crimson asked, sitting up from her futon and closing her scroll.

_Guess we are,_ Yang thought.

“Yup!” she said, in the most upbeat tone her voice could muster. “Everyone, let’s... gather round.”

Yang sank to the floor, folding one knee against her chest and throwing her arm over it in an imitation of casualness. Weiss complied with her request, rising elegantly to her feet and sitting on the floor across from Yang, her legs folded under her. In her hands, she carried the four packets, the pages pinched between her fingers. 

Crimson rose to her knees and waddled to Yang’s right, nearly tripping on her floor-length robe. She sat back, propping herself up with her right arm in a fashion that would surely hurt her wrist.

Yang glimpsed a shadow out of the corner of her eye, and sure enough, Dusk had manifested to her left, sitting cross-legged in her black nightgown with her hands folded in her lap. Yang, for once, appreciated her silence throughout this process. There was something comforting about her unspoken assuredness.

No one spoke. Weiss rifled noisily through the packets, counting the pages like stacks of lien. She bounced them against her lap, aligning the papers, then rotated, bounced them again, and then repeated the process, her eyes never leaving her hands. 

Apparently, _someone_ was just as nervous about this as Yang was, Yang observed.

She sighed -- not audibly, but for herself.

_Well, now or never._

“Real quick, before we read them, can I just say something?”

The forced equanimity strained her voice. Three heads turned to Yang, the room turning silent as Weiss paused her abuse of the packets.

“Sure,” Weiss said, sitting back on her heels. She placed the packets on the floor next to her. 

Her blue eyes watched her curiously.

No hatred. No fear. Just curiosity.

That was a good place to start.

Yang steeled herself and began. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this all day. About how this is to… ‘get to know’ us.”

Weiss nodded carefully. She didn’t speak, though, so Yang continued.

“And I have to say, there’s a lot of things in there that I didn’t want to answer,” she continued. 

_Semblance. Birthday. Father._

She’d filled them in anyway.

“So I was thinking about other ways for us to get to know each other.” She looked around at each of her teammates. “Because, let’s face it: you can’t get to know someone solely through a document.”

Weiss didn’t nod at that. Her eyes retreated downwards.

 _Bring it home,_ Yang guided herself. It wouldn’t help to make Weiss feel bad. “If you ever want to get to ‘Never Have I Ever’-level trust and understanding, you’re going to have to do some natural legwork. There’s no way around it.”

She let there be silence. There wasn’t really anything else she wanted to say, honestly; she just hoped someone would respond, with grace.

 _“What-_ level?”

Yang looked back at Weiss, whose eyebrows had drawn together.

Yang took a second to connect her meaning.

“Never Have I Ever-level. I mean, like, the level of friendship and trust where you can play those kinds of games.”

“What game?”

It was Yang’s turn to be confused. She looked between Weiss and the other teammates, because surely she was misinterpreting Weiss’s meaning.

“Have you… never heard of Never Have I Ever?”

“Um, for the record,” Crimson said, and Yang’s head swiveled disbelievingly towards her, “I haven’t either.”

“I didn’t say I hadn’t!” Weiss objected.

Yang’s brain was stuck.

“How have you NEVER heard of Never Have I Ever?!” Yang asked incredulously. Was this just something they didn’t have in the Kingdoms? She looked to Dusk.

“I know what it is,” Dusk supplied calmly. “I’ve played many times.”

The smile rose to Yang’s face. 

Oh, this was going to be _fun._

“Well, then, we’ve got no other choice!” Yang declared. “Forget the packets, we’re playing Never Have I Ever!”

She scooted closer towards the group to form a tighter circle. She could feel some childish part of her bubbling into her mood. Flashes of memories raced through her head of lying under the starry sky as the fire burned to embers, wheezing with tearful giggles as Kestrel teased her with hushed whispers. The tension was streaming off her like rain, displaced by an overflowing burst of new energy: excitement at the prospect of childish mischief mingled with relief at escaping the jaws of Weiss’s judgement. She was _so ready_ to smile.

“Hang on a minute,” Weiss requested. “I thought you implied high-level friendships play this game.”

Yang dampened her high. “Well, it’s more fun if you know the person well,” she admitted. She beckoned them to scoot into the circle, and after some hesitation, both Crimson and Weiss acquiesced. “But you can play it with people you’ve just met so that they can tell stories about their lives. It builds trust.”

Weiss looked off for a moment, nodding slowly. “So… we can learn things about each other this way?”

“You betcha!” Yang said.

Weiss thought for a moment longer, then looked at Yang and smiled. “Then I’m in.”

Yang cheered. “Dusk, how about you?” she asked, bright eyes turning on Dusk.

Dusk’s face was pulled into a mask of contemplation, as if weighing the trust-vulnerability risk in her head. 

_Smart woman,_ Yang praised.

“Sure,” Dusk said, and moved in closer.

“Urgh...” Crimson grumbled. “First the packet, and now I get dragged into this?”

“You don’t have to play if you don’t want to,” Yang told her.

“No, I’m gonna play, and I’m gonna win.”

Yang laughed. “Got a bit of a competitive streak, I see.”

“Could you remind us of the rules?” Weiss asked, as if she had ever known the rules in the first place. 

Yang wasn’t going to call her out on it, obviously. 

“Sure. The way you play varies with whatever group you’re in, but I like to start with five fingers.” She splayed her fingers to demonstrate. Weiss mirrored her. “We each take turns saying something that we’ve never done -- like, for example, I’d say something like… never have I ever been to Vale.”

“Is that true?” Crimson asked.

“Really,” Yang said. “Never even been on an airship before I came here.”

“Wow,” Crimson said.

“Exactly!” Yang burst, pleased with herself. “And if you _have_ done it, you put down a finger. If someone _hasn’t_ done something normal, like I just said, then that’s fun to talk about, but you can also say crazy things like ‘never have I ever…’ uhhh, ‘eaten an insect,’ and see who puts their finger down. Last person to lose all their fingers wins.”

“Like a confession game,” Weiss said. “Where people reveal their secrets.”

Yang faltered. “Ehhh, well, not their _secrets,_ per se, but more things they usually wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Weiss wasn’t looking at Yang. “Close enough.”

Yang was about to voice how she disagreed, when Crimson yelled “ALRIGHT LET’S PLAY ALREADY!”

In this moment, in the height of mirth, Yang thought this was the most fortunate outcome she could have possibly drawn. Instead of reading those damn packets in oh-so-tense silence, stealing judgemental glares and hiding haughty gasps, Yang foresaw a laughing, bonding group of girls in their pajamas, letting thoughts of their flaws drift away and making memories as the stack of packets sat untouched, forgotten.

This is what happened instead.

“I’ll go first,” Yang volunteered. “Never have I ever… broken a bone.”

Yang looked pointedly at her teammates. Weiss looked around a moment, then put her finger down at the same time as Crimson.

“I mean, who hasn’t, with training and stuff?” Crimson said. Weiss nodded in consensus.

“Not me,” Yang said. “So, if we’re going clockwise, it should be Dusk next. Dusk?”

Dusk, in her usual manner, looked into the middle-distance for a moment before answering.

“Never have I ever lost my scroll.”

_“Never?”_ Weiss gasped, putting down a finger. “But it’s, like, so easy!”

Dusk rolled her eyes. “Maybe for you.”

Weiss huffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Yang’s heart leapt into her throat. _Not good._

Yang looked to Crimson and interrupted with “Your turn!” before Dusk could respond.

“Oh!” Crimson sat up. “Um… Never have I ever been to Solitas.”

“Okay, that should NOT be allowed,” Weiss said, putting down a third finger.

“Yeah, Crimson, that’s pretty low,” Yang agreed. _Don’t make things worse._ “And, like, we already know that Weiss is Atlesian, so it doesn’t really help the bonding experience.”

“But I wanna win,” Crimson whined.

“Then play fairly, or you’re getting disqualified,” Yang scolded. “Weiss, your turn.”

Weiss looked down at her two remaining fingers, then back up at Yang. 

Then back down. And back up.

“Never have I ever used my Semblance to win a bet.”

“Oh, who _hasn’t_ done that,” Crimson complained, putting down another finger. 

Dusk did not put down a finger.

Yang had about two more seconds before her hesitation became suspicious.

Yes, she has used her Semblance to win a bet (strength competition). No, that does not have anything to do with her “Semblance,” the power of the Spring Maiden to summon lightning and, as she had to awkwardly “confess” last night, burn her hair. If she answered honestly, that would just lead to more lies about her Semblance, and she’d done enough lying as it is.

She left her finger up.

The final second passed. 

“What was the bet?” Yang asked Crimson to veer the conversation away from her.

“Oh, a race,” she said casually. “I have a speed Semblance.”

“Cool!” Yang remarked. Then, it occurred to her: “See, Weiss? How’s that for strategic information?”

Weiss nodded politely at her. “Right, yes.”

_Hm. Still need to win her over, I see._

“Well, back to me,” Yang said. “Let’s raise the bar a little. Never have I ever… hm, let’s say, kissed a boy.”

A tense standoff.

Then, resigned, Dusk lowered a finger.

Weiss and Crimson gasped, scandalized. Yang cackled with glee.

“Dusk, have you had a _boyfriend?”_ Weiss asked, almost like an accusation.

Dusk blinked levelly. “Yes. I currently do.”

More gasps. Crimson and Yang looked at each other with sparkles of various degrees of deviance in their eyes.

“Here Dusk is with a long-distance relationship,” Weiss complained, “and none of us have even had our first kisses yet!”

“Hey,” Yang corrected, “I said kissed a _boy,_ not kissed _anyone.”_

“Oh, I see,” Crimson giggled as Weiss’s jaw dropped, “very clever.” She waggled her eyebrows at her suggestively.

Yang felt herself blushing. “Oi, shut up,” she snapped, laughing it off. “Anyways, Dusk, it’s your turn.”

“How do I even follow that?” Dusk wondered aloud, shaking her head as a small, bewildered smile spread across her face.

Part of Yang’s brain shrieked with delight. _AND I got Dusk to smile? Oh, I’m too good._

“Let’s see…” Dusk pondered. “Never have I ever…”

Something changed on Dusk’s face.

“Never have I ever dyed my hair.”

Yang glanced around, as did Crimson and Weiss.

No fingers went down.

Yang chuckled to break the silence. “Where’d that come from?”

Dusk shrugged sheepishly. “I had my suspicions.”

“If it’s my hair you think is dyed, I deny it,” Crimson said, crossing her arms. “Don’t ask me how it works.”

“No, not you,” Dusk said. “I just… heard a rumor that one of the Schnee daughters dyes their hair.”

Weiss gawked. “That is NOT true.”

Yang raised an eyebrow. “You have sisters?”

Weiss nodded. “One, Winter. And she does NOT dye her hair, she just has darker eyebrows than the rest of us from our father.”

She frowned.

“Crimson, your turn.”

Crimson didn’t miss a beat. “Never have I ever been on TV!”

The frown turned into a scowl. “GODS, you’re annoying!” Weiss exclaimed as she turned to jab Crimson with her final finger, who was laughing devilishly.

Yang was grinning. Everyone was grinning, at this point.

Not Weiss. But everyone.

“Looks like you’re down to one finger, Weiss!” Yang heckled. “Considering you probably won’t survive another round, choose this question wisely!”

Weiss paused her assault and looked down at her finger. Crimson was wheezing, trying to metabolize her laughter.

And within moments, it was silent.

Weiss’s face was blank.

Yang’s smile strained.

“Weiss?” Yang said.

Weiss didn’t look up.

“Never have I ever _stolen.”_

It was spat.

Weiss raised her eyes and looked towards Yang. A chill rolled down her spine.

_Fuck._

“Um, well, depends on how you define it…” Crimson chuckled nervously.

Weiss’s gaze held. Piercing, cold, blue eyes clung to Yang’s remorselessly.

And Yang, held, slowly folded a finger down.

The eyes narrowed.

“Um…” Crimson tried again.

“What was it?”

All returned to stillness.

_A soul._

She couldn’t lie about this.

“All sorts of things,” Yang answered. “It’s our way of life.”

“That’s not right.”

Yang wrenched herself out of the eye contact and looked to the floor. She almost wanted to laugh. “I’m not doing this.”

“Yes, you are,” Weiss commanded, and Yang cursed again. “I’m not going to be on a team with someone who doesn’t know right from wrong.”

Her neck cracked with the speed that she looked up. “How _dare_ you--!”

“Guys, it’s fine--”

“No it’s not!” Weiss growled, and Crimson snapped her mouth shut. “Tell me, Yang, _how_ is what you do right?”

“It’s not what _I_ do, it’s our tradition!” Her hair flared.

“But you just said-- you said you stole!”

“I’ve taken!” Yang curled her fists. “Yes, I’ve _taken_ what I need to survive.”

“And?”

Yang blinked at her, eyes narrowed. “And _what?”_

“And what else,” Weiss accused, “have you taken?”

“I just told you, only what I need--”

“Never have I ever _killed_ someone.”

Her words died on her lips.

She looked between her teammates. Crimson stared, wide-eyed, between Yang and Weiss. 

It barely registered for Yang, but Dusk trembled with rage.

Yang laughed softly, hopelessly, shaking her head.

“No,” she said.

She couldn’t say anything else.

“No, no, no,” and the laughter continued.

Because what could she say? _Yes?_

Yang had buried her herself.

“Whoa, _Yang,”_ Crimson breathed.

Yang was plunged into icy reality, and choked in a breath, and realized how many tears were on her face. 

Three blurry forms stared at her, her and her _surely_ dull-haired, purple-eyed self.

Why was she crying?

_I killed someone._

For the right reasons.

_No._

Yes.

_No. Killing is wrong. Stealing is wrong._

...No.

_Yes._

“I’m sorry, Yang, I…”

Weiss’s hand moved towards her, and Yang ripped herself away.

She blinked. She _seethed._

She looked to Weiss with red, red eyes.

“No, you’re not.”

And that's what happened. The group dispersed, as agonizingly slowly as salt in water. Weiss dropped the packets on the desk and began reading, Yang crawled into her futon and faced the wall, Dusk returned to her corner and opened her scroll, and Crimson sat in the middle of the floor, head drooping like an abandoned doll. 

Silence festered in the room. Tension crept back into Yang’s being. No one spoke when Weiss turned off the lights. No one spoke as they lay in the dark, listening to each other’s breathing.

Weiss was still awake when Yang fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Flex Seal Tape commercial voice* Now that's a lotta dysfunction!
> 
> Keeping up my work on this for NaNoWriMo has been a challenge, but I'm proud that I've gotten these two chapters out! I'm aiming to post Chapter Thirteen: "Sitrep" next week, on Sunday, November 22!


	13. Sitrep

Dearest Winter,

To preface, this report was written on Wednesday. Traveling by air, it should arrive at your quarters by this weekend as we agreed. Please let me know if this arrived late, and I will adjust my timing accordingly in future reports.

Enclosed are the ID portraits and profiles of each of my teammates, including that of Yang Branwen. She filled it out herself, so while I cannot vouch for its honesty, I can say that she has proven to be more candid and welcoming in her behavior than I expected from a tribesman. However, she is still hesitant to offer information on herself, such as her background and her Semblance, and thus, I find it difficult to extract more specific intel. 

Aside from what you see in the packet, I have seen her Semblance once in action and witnessed some unusual behaviors that may be related to it in passing. Exactly as the mission file reported, she summoned several lightning bolts to obliterate Grimm during our initiation trial. Her Semblance also appears to be related to her hair, which glows and radiates heat, and her eyes, which just last night I discovered can shift from red to purple with a drop in her mood. As for other relevant information, she does not appear to be scheming, necessarily; the only secrets she seems intent on keeping concern her Semblance and details about her upbringing. 

I will continue to investigate this unless otherwise directed, as I frankly have seen no other suspicious behavior to investigate. If it would not be too much trouble to request, I would greatly appreciate further guidance or instruction for what specifically I should investigate. I would also be grateful for any additional information to which I do not yet have access. It is nevertheless perfectly acceptable if these requests are denied.

Your sister,

Weiss Schnee

Weiss,

I have relayed your intel to the General. He has denied your request for more information, as it is beyond your clearance level, as well as my own. You are encouraged to continue conducting the investigation as you see fit.

In addition to this, I was told to request that you promptly provide any and all additional information currently at your disposal on this teammate of yours, Crimson Silver, in your next report.

Also, how have you been?

Winter Schnee

Atlas Special Ops

Dearest Winter,

I am astonished at the speed of your response! If I may say, I was not expecting to receive a response at all, considering the nature of this mission.

I will comply with the request for additional information about Crimson, but I feel compelled to voice my surprise at this request. Is Crimson somehow connected to my mission concerning Yang? What is the Atlesian military’s interest in my teammate? I once again assure you that the answers to these inquiries will not affect my reports, but I would appreciate them nonetheless.

As for the topic at hand, Crimson and I do not get along. She appears to originate from a rural settlement in Sanus, to completely lack any sort of formal education, and to have severe, paralyzing reactions to the presence of Grimm due to the traumatic incident that likely took her left eye. She never takes off her eyepatch, so I have not been able to confirm this hypothesis. I personally cannot even fathom how she got into Haven Academy with a handicap like that, but I will withhold further judgement. With regards to investigating further, she spends less time with us and more with Team CMNE (I can provide their names in a future update if need be), with whom she claims to be friends. Now that I think about it, they must also hail from rural Sanus if she was to be familiar with them prior to her attendance. She seems somewhat blind to the world and ignorant of life in the Kingdoms -- in fact, she did not appear to know who I was upon our first meeting. We met at orientation, when we were both waiting for Yang by her seat. Reflecting on it now, I do not recall if I ever learned why she was waiting for Yang; they had never met, either.

That is the extent of my knowledge on Crimson Silver. If you find this insufficient, we are beginning a group presentation project this week in our combat course showcasing our Semblances and fighting styles; perhaps I can gather some additional information on both Yang and Crimson through that process.

To address your question about my wellbeing, I am unsure if I fully understand your meaning. It is too early in the semester to gauge the excellence of my performance in my classes, although I believe I have firmly established myself as team leader. 

I would ask you the same, but I know that this is an official document, and would not waste your time with irrelevant information. That being said, I find it pertinent to ask you about the state of the company; I saw on the news that there was another Dust heist on an SDC shipment carried out by Roman Torchwick in Vale the other day, and I cannot help but wonder why the company has not yet sought additional security from Vale law enforcement. If it is not above my station to ask, is there any discussion in the military of taking action to protect these goods against this criminal’s increasingly common attacks?

I hope the information in this letter was satisfactory. I will report again on Saturday.

Your sister,

Weiss Schnee

“I hope you have a good explanation as to why you two are late.”

“We do!” Crimson protested. “Weiss insisted we eat dinner as a team.”

Cinder narrowed her eyes at her and Dusk. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Crimson complained. “Weiss is the one to blame, not us.”

Cinder crossed her arms. Then, after a prolonged glare, she said, “Don’t make a habit of it.”

_Yeah, like you needed to tell me that._

She gestured a stiff hand to where Emerald and Mercury lounged on the dorm room floor. Neo stood against the wall, hands folded behind her back.

Crimson rolled her eye and sat down next to Emerald. Dusk followed suit, folding her legs under her a few feet away.

There was a silence. Crimson looked up at Cinder, who paced slowly towards her seated subjects, regarding them with a twinkle of pride in her eye.

Crimson wanted to stick her tongue out at her. She refrained.

Cinder finally planted herself before them and clasped her hands in front of her.

“We have much to do before the attack on Vale,” Cinder began. “There is not much we _can_ do, however, before we arrive at Beacon.”

Crimson would recognize that pose anywhere. It was a poor imitation, though. Shoulders too far forward, chin too high, arms too straight. Cinder’s poised stance looked like an ashamed child, not like the Grimm Queen. Crimson rolled her eye once again. Salem wore it better.

Cinder pulled out her scroll and continued. “The original plan was to arrive as transfer students at the beginning of the second semester. Because that is no longer the case--” she glanced towards Crimson, and Crimson glared right back “--we will spend our time collecting information.”

Cinder looked to Emerald, who sat up. “Did you complete your reconnaissance of this campus?”

Emerald nodded. “Yes. Mercury, Neo and I spent Tuesday afternoon mainly scouting out security cameras and blindspots, but this morning, we…”

She trailed off, glanced aside, and stuttered back into motion.

“We acquired a skeleton key to Haven’s files.”

“How?”

Crimson’s head turned towards Dusk, who watched Emerald with steely eyes.

“You are in no position to ask questions,” Cinder growled. “You should be grateful you’re allowed to be in this room at all.”

Dusk’s gaze moved to her, its firmness sustained. 

Crimson looked between Cinder and Dusk. Something in Dusk’s demeanor twitched.

Dusk sat back on her heels. Concession.

Crimson unraveled. A small smirk twisted Cinder’s face. She looked back to Emerald.

“Well done,” she said, dry of praise. “With that information, our time here will be much better spent.”

_What does that even mean?_ Crimson complained.

Emerald nodded, a smile coming to her own face. Cinder turned away before it could be acknowledged.

Her gaze had returned to Dusk, who still held that mechanical coldness in her eyes. Cinder’s face sharpened to match. 

“If you have anything to contribute to this meeting, say it now,” she ordered.

Dusk’s face did not change. Her head rotated to the side, eyes like marbles as she stared down the group.

“My name is Blake Belladonna,” she introduced. “I am a sister of the White Fang.”

She reached into her jacket and produced a scroll. _The_ scroll. “Until I can plant this virus in the Vale CCT, I am at your disposal to perform the espionage needed to carry out this task successfully as Dusk Nightshade.”

She returned the scroll to her pocket. 

There was a pause.

_Oh. She’s done._

“Hang on,” Crimson said, “Dusk’s not your real name?”

“I accept your offer of assistance,” Cinder said, completely brushing past Crimson’s confusion, even though _hey! I feel like that’s important!_ “The White Fang will be indispensable to our victory.” Cinder’s gaze swept back out over the others. “Even now, the Vale branch moves to assist in escalating Roman Torchwick’s seizure of Vale’s Dust supply.”

_Who?_

“He’s with us?” Dusk -- _wait, should I be calling her Blake now?_ \-- asked.

A dagger of a glare flew towards Blake. It bounced off her callous exoskeleton without leaving a dent.

 _Unstoppable pride meets immovable aloofness,_ Crimson marveled. 

Cinder, caught, hissed _“Yes.”_

_Blake Belladonna, you’re my hero._

“Don’t presume you have any sort of power to change this,” Cinder went on. Her hands separated to curl into fists at her sides.

“I don’t,” Blake answered. 

Crimson was delighted at how Cinder seethed silently at Blake’s serenity. Her shoddy Salem impression had simmered off like sweaty makeup, leaving only Cinder’s usual grimace and crooked posture to flick pebbles of intimidation at Blake’s stone visage.

It was subdued, but it was ugly, and it was the highlight of Crimson’s day.

“We have nothing more to discuss,” she bit. She drew herself back up into her limp-spinach Salem impression and tossed a prickly glance towards Neo. 

“Neo, escort her back to her room,” she barked. 

Neo nodded with a sugary grin and stood off the wall. Blake rose. Somehow, her lack of resistance only invigorated Crimson’s glee, as it worsened Cinder’s contempt.

Blake’s eyes remained locked with Cinder’s. When she passed Cinder, Cinder broke off, refusing to turn to see her to the exit. Neo opened the door, and gestured to Blake with a slight bow. Blake did not look away from Cinder until the door shut.

Crimson sighed, and sat back.

“Well, that was fun.”

Cinder growled at her. Crimson suppressed a giggle. It was fun to play with her when she got like this.

But Cinder caught on and ended the antics before Crimson could get carried away. She took a deep breath with closed eyes and leveled her gaze at Crimson. The hands folded, _again._

“What of the Spring Maiden?” she asked.

_Aw, man._

Crimson shuffled back into sitting upright.

“Not much,” she admitted. Before Cinder could erupt, Crimson tagged on, “Though I did learn that her hair can go out, and her eyes can turn purple. So...”

Cinder blinked. She crossed her arms. “Really.”

“Yeah, really,” Crimson affirmed. “Last night we played Never Have I Ever, and she got sad, and started crying, and her hair turned just kind of regular-yellow instead of super-yellow, and her eyes turned purple -- the part that’s usually red, not, like, all of it.”

“Could be a Semblance side effect,” Emerald suggested. “I’ve never seen you do anything like that with your power, Cinder.”

“Indeed,” Cinder attested, brows furrowing. “If she was the Spring Maiden, then her _real_ Semblance could be tied to her emotions.” She tapped a finger. “Interesting.”

“We have that demonstration project coming up in Professor Jade’s class,” Crimson mentioned. “That would be my best opportunity to really confirm if it looks like magic or not.”

“No,” Cinder denied. “You had seven days. The presentations are next week.”

The sting and stun felt like Crimson had been slapped.

“Well, c’mon,” she haggled. “It’s the best shot I’ve got, and--”

“I want results!” Cinder roared. Crimson jerked back, eye wide. “If you can’t handle that, then--”

“Then what?” Crimson’s voice lurched forth. “What are you gonna do, Cinder? Yell at me?”

That was. Louder. Than she expected.

And now it was much, much quieter.

Her blood moved in reverse. Even after all these years, she still didn’t have Blake’s nerve when it came to staring down the barrel of Cinder’s gaze.

“Next Friday,” Cinder said, and _ooh,_ it grazed her skin like a knife. Her lips tightened. 

“Either you confirm it by demonstration,” she threatened, “or you’re out of time.”

Something wriggled in her face.

_Technically, she won that argument._

It didn’t feel like it.

She nodded. “I will.”

Wednesday, 20:04

Contact Unknown: yo yo yo

Contact Unknown: bbbbbbbbb

Contact Unknown: pinging ~dusk nightshade,~ totally human haven student?

You: Who is this?

Contact Unknown: blake. it’s me.

Contact Unknown: i can imagine you freaking out lol like “who tf is thisss”

You: wait wtf ilia?????

Contact Unknown: HEY B

You: OMG HIIIII

Contact Unknown: WHATS HAPPENIN

You: okay what hang on gimme a sec

You: alright added your contact

You: why tf are you texting me?? this is my new scroll, you could like. idk screw things up if someone found this.

illizard: are you planning on that?

You: of course not askjfdls

illizard: then you got nothing to worry about! :b 

Illizard: so whats up? how r things going at haven?

illizard: cant imagine a lot has happened in 5 days lol

You: you could literally not be more wrong

You: hang on let me just glfdjgfdkl

illizard: oh shit really? sure ill wait

illizard: better give me alllll the tea lmaooo

You: so as planned i ended up on a team with Weiss Schnee, Heiress To The Schnee Dust Company, LLC and she is WAYYY bitchier than you could have imagined, its insane. also someone figured out i was a faunus but its fine cause he is too (monkey tail) and promised not to say anything and is like, way too dumb to figure out im Blake Belladonna so hhhh

illizard: well that was a LOT

You: ye

illizard: whats the worst thing shes said

illizard: like, is she Super Racist or just like

illizard: daytime commercial broadcasting racist

You: she actually isnt that bad like she doesnt say anything OVERTLY racist or anything?? its just that like she seems WILDLY ignorant

You: like for example yesterday…

illizard: ooh when they start another message you know its gonna be good

You: i have this other teammate whos the daughter of the leader of the branwen tribe out in anima (look it up). im not gonna judge, you know? we do the same shit all the time, but like, theyre just doing it to survive, theyre not even doing anything political

illizard: yeah

You: but little miss Atlas First was like

You: “WAHH, STEALING IS WRONG IN ALL CONTEXTS, YOU HURT PEOPLE INADVERTENTLY, I DONT SEE THE IRONY IN ANY OF WHAT IM SAYING AT ALL”

illizard: yiiikes

You: and it was like So Annoying because hello?? miss schnee??? you think your family isnt guilty of the exact same just out of greed and racism and shit????

You: or did we not like execute enough board members to get that across

illizard: that literally is the most irritating thing, ive had to deal with my fair share of atlas bitches in my day and lemme say, youre dealing with the final boss of atlas bitches

You: fjdsklf ILL BREAK HER TEETH TO MAKE YOU PROUD

illizard: YOU BETTER LDSKALDJSA

You: okay but real talk anything else been going on? just heard today something about the wf getting involved with this torchwick guy thats been making the news recently

illizard: alright so he IS with the virus people

You: ?

illizard: adam just told us wed be doing the grunt work for some of his stuff in the future, doesnt make sense unless he has a deal with the black queen peeps and this is all about the attack

You: OKAY DAMN

illizard: was i right???

You: WE STAN A SMART BITCH IN THIS HOUSE

illizard: fdsfdsjklfdjs thank you im honored

You: how is he btw

illizard: ???? the torchwick guy ??? idk i havent met him wtf are you talking abt

You: I mean Adam.

illizard: Oh.

illizard: yeah nothin to really repot on that front

illizard: report* haha

illizard: havent rly spent much time around him so idk but

illizard: no news is kinda good news right?

illizard: i mean you leaving hasnt completely destroyed him lol

illizard: so thats good i guess

illizard: lol

illizard: b?

illizard: neways enough abt me and wf shit lets talk haven, whats mistral like??

You: Did he ask you to do this?

illizard: haha wym

illizard: adam?

You: Yes.

illizard: No.

illizard: Of course he didn’t.

You: Honest?

illizard: hope to die, b

illizard: You think I’d lie to you about this?

You: no what obvs not

You: just

You: its kinda sth he would try is all

You: im just glad to hear he didnt

illizard: yeah.

illizard: so its probably like. really late for you

You: nah its only like 8

illizard: oh fr? yah i have no idea how timezones work lol

You: lol

illizard: but maybe we should just, like, call it a night

You: yeah? sth happen?

illizard: yeah sorry lol, kitchen duty

You: ah alright, have fun!

illizard: thanks lol

illizard: ttyl, k? you can talk to me anytime. :)

You: yeah no for sure! ttyl <3

illizard: alright byeee!

You: see ya ;3

Read at 20:08

You set notifications on this conversation to Do Not Disturb

The tribe had nowhere to be alone. All tents except Yang’s own and Raven’s had plural occupancy. Outside a tent and within the walls, you were always in a group, doing a chore or relaxing in the shared space, always touching others with eyes and hearts. And if you were going out into the wilderness, you never went alone. Sure, for things indecent to be done in public view there was _separation,_ but to be truly alone in a tribe was to be the only one left.

Yet, compared to Mistral, there was more privacy in the tribe than water in the sea.

It was the eyes. Always, people watched. From cameras. From windows. From behind you in the hallway. From blue eyes. Under an open sky, no one sees you but the merry crew you’re with. Among the trees, everyone is eye-level. No eyes, just smiles.

On Thursday afternoon, Yang set out to find an eyeless place in Haven. A place with few people, sure, that was a start. But Yang needed to find somewhere unwatchable, somewhere where no one walked by and slid warmthless glances across her back, somewhere that held the illusion of being as empty as the mountains back home.

It would be lonely, but it would soothe the crawling under her skin.

She eventually found a place hidden around the corner of a balcony that was good enough. Mistral was built on top of itself, clambering up the soaring mountains like weeds. Nary an inch of standing space in Haven was unobservable from a higher window or looming balcony. What Yang found was the part of the balcony that was excess; a structural mishap that forced the balcony to conjoin with the cliffside to stop it from falling clean off. This side of the building had no windows, as they would stare directly at the stone wall, but did conceal a bench, at the back of the alley formed between these walls. Sitting on it, Yang could see a tunnel to the edge of the balcony ten paces away, where the flat surfaces dropped off to glimpse a blank quilt square of the far-off orange sky. Hardly a view. Still, Yang could find two things to enjoy about it: that she could watch from afar the many birds that came to perch on the balcony railing, and that no one could watch her.

That sky. These walls. Even outdoors, in the cool air, did the world fail to reach her.

Homesick. That’s what she was.

It felt pathetic.

Her attention was drawn as the pigeons on the railing all scattered at once in a thunderclap of wingbeats, fleeing the huge black bird that landed with a thump on the railing. It turned its head, body teetering to a halt on the ledge.

Yang watched it. It met her eyes.

She squinted at it, and felt foolish to say, “Raven?”

The bird made no advancements towards her. But it did not look away.

Yang’s mother never offered comforting touches, consoling words. Yang did not long for her sympathy.

But she did say to the bird, “I wish I were back home.”

The bird did not fly off. Its black feet shifted underneath it, and it settled further on the railing. Its beady eyes shimmered.

It was silly that Yang did not feel discouraged.

She leaned back on the bench and looked past the silhouette on the railing and out towards the tangerine sunset.

“I’ve managed to keep it a secret,” she continued, speaking to the air. 

The bird did not move.

“It gets harder every day, what with training and all. We have a project coming up where we’ll have to show our Semblances. Don’t know how I’m gonna spin it then.”

Silence.

“Maybe I’ll just say it like it is.”

Silence.

“I’m rotten at keeping secrets.”

Silence.

Yang sighed. 

“The tribe kept no secrets.”

The bird’s head cocked. 

Whether that was a sign of intrigued encouragement, or simply a bird being a bird, Yang couldn’t tell. She took it as both. It felt easy to go on.

“My teammates,” she explained, leaning on an arm. “They seem like decent people, but our leader, Weiss, is a little…”

_Entitled? Nosy? Presumptuous?_

“...too up-in-my-business,” she chose. Her fingers found the bandana tied around her thigh and began fiddling with it lazily. “She also shows no respect for our ways.”

The bird readjusted its wings. Acknowledgement, or a response to a shift in the wind?

Yang looked skyward. “I just wish she’d let me explain it to her.” Her fingers squeezed the fabric.

“It’s like--” She swung forward and landed her elbows on her knees, the frustration throwing itself to the front of her mind. “We do what we do to survive! The weak die, the strong live! There’s nothing more to it, there’s no code, there’s no rules out in the wilderness, and if she doesn’t just accept that, she’s a-- she’s…”

_She’s ignorant._

_She doesn’t know what it’s like._

_She wouldn’t survive a day._

_The tribe is strong. The settlements are weak. They’d die to Grimm anyways._

_They’d die anyways._

_They’d die anyways._

_They’d die--_

The bird cawed.

Yang’s head wrenched up, out of her hands. 

The bird was quiet.

Yang took a deep breath. A deep, shaking breath of mountain air. The sky had dimmed, apricot to peach.

She closed her eyes, and leaned back on the bench.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Yang?”

Her eyes flew open.

Crimson’s head peeked around the corner of the building, a silver eye watching her curiously.

The bird cawed.

Yang looked between the bird and Crimson. She sat up, brushing the worry off her face.

“Hey Crimson,” she greeted. It sounded off. She blinked. “How did you find me?”

“Dusk said she saw you come up here,” Crimson said.

The bird cawed again, twice, louder. Yang glanced at it. It watched the newcomer with its wings raised up behind it, poised to take flight.

Crimson took a more annoyed glance at it, then turned back to Yang. “Weiss wants you to come down for dinnertime,” she relayed.

 _I don’t,_ Yang thought.

She smeared on a smile. “Sure thing,” she replied. “I’ll see you down there in a bit.”

The bird gave one final caw, a shriek, and Yang looked at it once more. It fully faced Crimson, its body teetering on the railing, its wings flared in a jagged arc, its beak ajar with harsh croons. 

Crimson ogled it nervously, but her eyes forgot it as soon as she looked away. She nodded at Yang before disappearing back around the corner.

The big black bird stopped cawing moments later, but it did not settle back down. It was roused, now, feathers sticking up in ripples of distress. Yang wasn’t sure what Crimson’s presence had done to deserve this wild animal’s frantic reaction, but she certainly knew that it couldn’t be her mother.

She was a little disappointed with that. If it had been her mother, she could have deluded herself into thinking that _maybe_ Raven would stick around to listen to her mope about her problems. But even if she did, there was no reason for her to react so violently to the appearance of Yang’s teammate.

Maybe Raven would do that, though.

Meet Yang’s new friends with disdain.

_Well._

_“Friends” is a strong word._

Yang forced herself to her feet. The sky was darkening fast. Back home, she’d see this color of sky and smile; this color of darkness brought everyone home, everyone together, with hearts and smiles.

Here, this darkness brought eyes.

They watched as she dragged her feet towards the front of the building. She felt the beady black eyes in a feathery black face peer at her back.

Her hand on the door handle, Yang’s chin went over her shoulder.

She could have said something.

She turned back and went inside.

Yang couldn’t have seen or heard it, but the raven took flight when the door hit the frame. It rose into the darkening sky.

A red tear ripped through the twilight. The raven flew through it.

With a shimmer, the portal closed, and all returned to quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ironwood and Raven, simultaneously: WHO IS THIS CHILD AND WHY DOES SHE LOOK LIKE EDGY SUMMER ROSE
> 
> One more week of NaNoWriMo left! My hope is to have Chapter 14 (title TBD) up by Sunday, November 29.


	14. The Black Queen

“We need to talk.”

Weiss knew it was a scary thing to hear. But she didn’t expect that _she’d_ be the one scared, by a mere jaw-clenched look from Yang, no less.

“And before you say anything--” Weiss scrambled. 

_Slow down,_ a voice in her head instructed. _Assert your authority._

Weiss lifted her chin, and matched Yang’s eyes. 

“We need to understand each other,” Weiss slowly informed her, “so I’m making an effort to do this kind of thing _your_ way.”

Yang pulled back a mite on her glare. “‘My’ way?”

A spark of hope threatened to flare in Weiss’s heart.

She pulled the checkered object she held in her hands up to her chest and presented it to Yang with a lipless smile. “With a game!”

Yang stared at her. Not with fire, just with confusion.

Not as well-received as she had hoped, but she’d take it.

Weiss turned the case over in her hands and folded it open, displaying its contents. “On Tuesday, you suggested Never Have I Ever instead of… what I had planned,” Weiss explained. Yang’s face didn’t change, so she pepped up the charm in her voice and continued in a rush, “but you seemed to enjoy it, so I thought you might appreciate talking over an activity.”

Yang leaned down and inspected the pieces encased in Weiss’s hands with a crooked brow.

_A yes? Please?_

“What game?” Yang asked.

Weiss’s smile slipped off. She looked down disbelievingly at the patterned case and pristinely organized ivory pieces, then up at Yang’s earnestly scrunched face. 

She blinked. This was not in the script.

“Chess.”

Yang’s gaze fled to the side and sought the dorm room floor. “Aw, you know I don’t know how to play, so--”

“So this will be an opportunity to learn!” Weiss interjected, and though she winced internally to do so, it was only in the name of fostering her burgeoning hope of success.

Yang’s gaze did not return to her, instead departing to her other side and judging the closet door. “That would be great, but maybe some other time. You know, our presentations are on Monday, and I’m kind of busy with that…”

Weiss regarded Yang and her poor excuse with due dubiousness. “You need extra time on a weekend? After you’ve supposedly been meeting with what’s-her-name all week? Who can’t even _speak_ in your presentation?”

Yang’s gaze sharpened at that. “Her name is Neo.”

Weiss was slowly improving at shaking off the intensity of Yang’s sudden stares, but this one made her fumble.

“Uh-- well, yes, okay, you and _Neo_ aren’t spending all this time _meeting,_ I can tell you that,” Weiss said. 

Yang raised her eyebrows at her innocently. 

Weiss scoffed. The arrogance she had to put up with, she’s telling you. “You’re barely fooling Crimson, you think you can fool me?”

Nothing in Yang’s expression changed, but she froze, and Weiss knew she’d caught her.

_Tact. This calls for_ tact.

She softened her face and lowered the chess set to her side. “Yang,” she entreated. Yang looked down. 

“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” Weiss said, and she was surprised by the lack of accusation in her voice. “Honestly, after what I’ve said to you, I’d avoid me too.”

Her hand found itself clamping tighter around the box.

“You going off to brood isn’t going to solve this,” Weiss stated, “and me doing things the way I have isn’t going to help either.”

She knew this well.

Yang was not in front of her anymore. A girl with eyes reaching for the floor stood before her, but Weiss had plunged into a different kind of moment. Her sight flew past Yang, infinitely far, beyond the horizon and around the curvature of the planet until it wound up behind her, staring at her reflection.

She’d been here before. She stood in front of herself on her tenth birthday, on nights when she had the stage to herself, on the day her airship left for the Academy, on the moment she woke up with a bandage covering her eye.

And she told herself, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Her vision locked back into her head, and she locked eyes with Yang.

“You’re trying to understand, and make things right,” Yang went on, and amiability returned to her face for the first time in what to Weiss felt like lifetimes. “Couldn’t decline an offer as generous as that.”

Yang smiled. 

Weiss, astonished, smiled back.

“So how do you play?”

“I looked you up in the library,” Weiss confessed, placing a white bishop.

Yang’s face stretched. “Really?” She moved her black pawn out of the way. “And what did you find?”

Weiss tutted. “No, pawns only go _forward,”_ Weiss instructed, nudging the piece to the correct position. “And, I learned some very interesting things.”

Yang rested her chin on her hand. “Like what? Your turn.”

“I _know,”_ Weiss hissed, and Yang grinned. “Well, for starters, there’s not much cultural information available,” she reported. “Only records of wars with other tribes, limited dynastic history, things like that.” Weiss slumped. “Of course people only see bad things about your tribe.”

Weiss’s bishop slid into the spot once occupied by Yang’s pawn. 

Yang huffed. “Well, there you go.”

Then, after a moment’s consideration, Yang slid her rook towards her.

“Ooh, not bad,” Weiss said, and her bishop promptly vacated the space.

“Still…” Weiss added as Yang pondered the board.

“Hm?”

“Can you explain it to me, then?”

Yang’s gaze tried to leave the board. She wrestled it back down.

She took a condemned breath. 

“Explain what?” rode out on a sigh. 

She already knew the answer.

“Just, your… ideology,” Weiss said, and Yang closed her eyes.

_There it is._

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Weiss continued, and Yang moved her rook back up a space. “I think stealing and destroying defenseless settlements -- either directly, or by the subsequent Grimm -- is wrong.” Weiss’s bishop receded to another space.

If Yang’s rook followed, it would be taken by her knight.

Her pawn marched.

“So, explain it to me,” Weiss requested, “so I can think of you as a good person.”

Yang’s eyes faced downwards, but she did not see the board.

She saw her face.

_Her_ face.

Her open, unseeing eyes, reflecting the sunlight.

The color of her hair mingling seamlessly with the color of her blood.

“I can’t.”

Weiss’s hand paused, midair.

“What do you mean?”

She set down her bishop, and the pawn was taken from the board.

Yang didn’t know either. What she meant, how to explain it.

She owed it to Weiss, though, to try.

“I…”

_Play the game._

Her eyes slid to the edge of the board.

A new black pawn stepped forward.

“I haven’t just been avoiding you,” she told Weiss. “I’ve been thinking. And…”

Weiss’s bishop fled to the other side of the battlefield. She knew what was coming.

“I can’t defend myself to you,” Yang professed.

A few seconds passed in silence.

“It’s your turn.”

Yang’s fingers rested on the pawn.

“It’s just how we live,” she said feebly.

“I know.”

“But you’re _right,”_ Yang gasped softly. “We don’t do good things, _I_ don’t do good things, and it’s just for our survival, but do we even _deserve_ to survive if it’s through-- through _destroying_ innocent lives?”

The pawn began trembling. In Yang’s eyes, the board blended into grey.

“Yang.”

“And if you’re right, then what does that make me?” Yang cried, and Yang _cried._ It was odd, how quickly she found herself erupting, when every day she burned in strong pyres of anger without batting an eye. “If _we’re_ killers, am _I_ a killer? What can I do?” She shook her head, or maybe her entire body just shuddered with enough force to shake the tears off her face. “What can I _do,_ if I’m just another killer like them?”

_“Yang.”_

A hand squeezed her shoulder. Yang’s lungs spasmed, and light filled her eyes as she raised her head.

She saw Weiss through a mosaic of fresh tears. A halo of white, spots of blue -- nothing more. But Weiss’s look of utter sympathy was clear as day, and the haze thickened.

Yang sniffed, terribly childishly, and sat up. _No, no, no, no purple eyes,_ an abhorred voice in her head mewled. She hid her face in her hands as her fingers worked relentlessly to rid her face of tears.

Weiss's hand remained on her shoulder, and she wished she’d get it off.

Actually, no, she didn’t wish that.

She opened her mouth with a glottal sigh, the wet underbelly of a laugh. When was the last time she had cried like this? In front of _her,_ of all people, who now knows what she _really_ is, and is now going to _hate_ her, she doesn’t need to be crying right now, she needs to be strong, she’s already lost this fight and now she’s showing such a pathetic display of _weakness_ that she’s practically--

Yang’s head jerked forward with a hard _thwack._

“OW!”

Her hands abandoned her face and grabbed for her injury.

“I’m sorry!” Yang squinted forward to see Weiss, whose hands covered her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do, I called your name like five times and you just kept staring and not breathing so I just got scared and--”

Weiss saw Yang’s glare, and squeaked another “I’m sorry!”

Yang rubbed her head and sat up again, flinching as her palm found the welt on the back of her head. “You pack a punch,” she commented.

“I’m sorry,” Weiss repeated.

“No, thank you,” Yang said, almost before she thought of saying it. Weiss blinked at her.

“Uh…”

But it was true.

“Seriously,” Yang said, putting her hand down. She looked Weiss in the eye. “I was kind of freaking out.”

“Obviously,” Weiss said. “You scared me.”

“Yeah, you said that,” Yang informed her with a light chuckle. “Sorry.”

“No, no need to apologize,” Weiss said, looking down at the chessboard. “I’m the one who brought it up. The least I can do is be understanding.”

Yang’s forehead bunched up.

Weiss heard the silence looked back up at her. “What?”

“You…”

Yang wasn’t sure what to call it. 

“You _forgive_ me?”

Weiss rolled her eyes, with upturned lips. “I never said that.”

Yang’s heart plummeted.

“But,” Weiss added, tempering the distress on Yang’s face, “I’m not going to make my teammate feel worse than she already does. If you agree with me -- if you think stealing and killing is bad, I mean -- then I don’t care what you’ve done. You won’t do it again.”

Yang stared at her.

Weiss gestured to the board. “Your turn.”

Yang’s eyes fell to the game.

With steady fingers, she grasped her black queen, and set it down on the front lines.

Weiss hummed. “Okay…”

They exchanged pieces and looks. White warriors sashayed around the black queen, leaping away from her arms in wide arcs. A white knight pounced upon a pawn, and the queen swallowed him up. Yang set bait. Weiss did not take it. The far gaze of her fretting neglected her front step, and the queen decimated her pawns one by one. 

_Now,_ Yang knew.

She breathed. “I also looked you up.”

Weiss’s fingers curled.

“Did you now?” she acknowledged as she repositioned her rook.

“You know,” Yang began on a dry tongue, “rural tribes don’t really deal in Dust. Most of what we get is fire or ice from… Well, we give what we find to our leader, since her weapon is equipped to use it.”

Yang pushed forth a pawn.

Weiss ignored the trap and countered it with a threat from her final knight. She said nothing.

“But I’ve heard of the Schnee Dust Company,” Yang completed her thought. “And while I’ll admit that I didn’t put two and two together when we first met, after Reese’s little outburst, I thought it would be good to… y’know.”

The queen strode in.

“Check.”

Weiss’s eyes traced the board.

Gingerly, she moved her rook in parallel with the queen.

“Did you find anything you wanted to ask me about?”

Weiss folded her hands and looked up at Yang.

There was something different about her face that Yang couldn’t place, but could feel, like dry air.

The tilt in her head, maybe. The way her bottom eyelids lifted, but the corners of her mouth lowered.

Hospitable hostility.

Yang’s fingers went cold.

They both knew the answer to that question.

“Well,” she ventured, treading on ice, “there’s plenty of people online who don’t seem too happy with the Schnee Dust Company.”

Nothing changed in Weiss’s face.

Discouraged from continuing but encouraged to tell. 

Yang bit that bullet as gently as she could. 

“Like, for example, I came across some claims from Faunus rights groups -- the White Fang, which I’d already heard about, but also others, from Vacuo and Menagerie and -- well, pretty much everywhere -- but no one’s nearly as… um, _outspoken_ as the Mantle Coalition of Miners, who’ve got, y’know, HUNDREDS of posts on their site about, like, poor conditions, and underpayment, and lack of protections -- plus, like, legal cover-ups of some honestly pretty, um, _brutal_ stuff and, well, I was reading all this and had no idea about so much of this Faunus stuff in the first place so the fact that it can all be traced back to the Schnee Dust Company is really alarming and, so, I just…”

Yang watched Weiss helplessly. Nothing changed in her demeanor, only tighter fists and narrowed eyes.

“...explain it to me.”

Weiss slowly blinked, her face transforming into a rueful smile.

“I can’t.”

The knot forming between Yang’s shoulders squeezed.

“That’s hypocrisy,” Yang declared, in a gasp of betrayal.

“I know.” Smiling.

She ground her teeth. “You can’t tell me what we do is wrong if your family does the exact same!”

“I _know!”_ Weiss guffawed. “I know we do the same thing!” Her eyes flared open like viper mouths. Yang’s wide eyes caught a glint of agony in the blue. “But what can _I_ do, Yang?”

“You’re the heiress!”

“And you’re not?” Weiss snapped.

Yang blustered. “You don’t have Grimm in the Kingdoms -- you’d be able to voice your objections without risk of ruin! You could walk right up to your father and tell him--”

“I could NOT!” Weiss shrieked.

Eerily, the smile remained.

Weiss’s eyes glittered with madness. They entranced Yang. Together, they panted, breathing each other’s remorse.

“I don’t know what to think,” Weiss admitted.

Yang watched the smile wilt, down, down, down until Weiss’s eyes met the floor.

“Me neither,” Yang replied.

They sat in silence.

Yang wasn’t expecting… _any_ of this. Not that Weiss would ask her to talk, or that she would realize the things she did today, or that Weiss would forgive her. 

Nor that she would ask Weiss to talk, or that she would learn Weiss was just as trapped and terrified as she was.

Or that she would forgive Weiss.

“My turn?” Yang asked.

Weiss looked up. Her fingers, woven together in her lap, had blanched.

She smiled at Yang. Yang smiled back.

“Yes,” she said.

Yang won her first game of chess five moves later.

Blake enjoyed reading. Not the act of scanning her eyes across a line of text, but the act of _reading:_ of holding words in your hands -- a bound book, a printed document -- and letting a solid object transcend your mind. Therefore, Blake enjoyed a good library.

Haven wasn’t home to a particularly large library, a cultural scar of the Great War. Since the creation of the CCT network, expanding the shelves of paper books at the Huntsmen Academies must have fallen by the wayside, because while Haven Academy’s library contained kiosks and tables and monitors on every story of the wonderfully vertical tower, it was only sparsely populated with bookshelves. 

It saddened Blake, but was irrelevant. She was not here to check out books. In fact, she was here to emphatically _not_ check out books and raise alarms. According to Emerald at Wednesday's inaugural Team Red meeting, they now -- somehow -- had the passwords to all of Haven Academy’s files. Blake suspected it was a gift of the same unseen ally that programmed the Black Queen virus, but she had no way to confirm that. If they did, how did they have access to Haven Academy’s system in the first place?

Blake knew a fair deal about computers, but this speculation was beyond her expertise. Her only guidance was that there was no way to know if Team Red was watching for curious searches on the Haven Academy research system that might reveal their secrets. It was far-fetched, but it wasn’t something Blake wanted to risk.

She sat down at one of the tables on the second floor. It was quiet. Her guess that the library would be mostly vacant on a Saturday night proved true. Still, she took measures to guard her sensitive research against prying eyes. She positioned her back to face a wall, and laid out her uniform’s jacket in an arc on the table in front of her. Her hands formed a fortress nestled in the ravine formed by the cloth, cradling her scroll like crenellated battlements. 

Blake glanced around at her surroundings. A few faraway pairs of students more concerned with each other than their presence in a public space chatted together; she appeared to be perfectly unnoticed. 

Still, as she opened her scroll, her finger hesitated over the folder icon.

She swept her gaze across the room once more. Her ears twitched under her bow.

Students working quietly, socializing. Not a solitary sidelong look touched her face.

She returned to her scroll and pulled up the document.

_Today’s objectives:_ she thought as she wrote. _Define Salem. Investigate The Story of the Seasons/“Spring Maiden.”_

_Should be easy enough._

It was not.

She stared at her scroll. The screen was transparent, blank, but for two lines of text.

Error 154: A keyword in your search is not recognized by the Cross Continental Transmit System database. 

Unrecognized keyword: “Salem”

Blake blinked. 

Her thumb pawed numbly at the refresh symbol.

Error 154: A keyword...

_Seriously?_

She swiped to a new window. 

_Error 154,_ she typed into the query box.

After a moment, a much more normal looking results page manifested:

“Error 154: A keyword in your search is not recognized by the Cross Continental Transmit System database” indicates that some contents of your search have been blocked by a network administrator.

_Source: ValeNetwork._

_Ah._

_It’s censorship._

And just like that, her thoughts ground to a halt. 

They froze in the air. An avalanche of implications, questions, and wild conclusions stood still, suspended in time, just at the brink of her consciousness.

And then they crashed down.

_The word “Salem” is a blocked search on my device? But I purchased this scroll barely a week ago, it isn’t registered on any networks other than the CCTS. The CCTS blocked “Salem?” Why? It’s an international organization. It’s an international cover-up? Of what? Why were Crimson and Cinder discussing it? If Salem is a person or group working with them, does the government know about them? If the government knows about them, why are they keeping it a secret? Why aren’t they intervening? Why is Team Red here with such confidence? Unless--_

A great boulder of a realization smashed to bits on the mountainside.

_The government is working with them?_

_No. Not just any government. Vale wouldn’t conspire against itself. ValeNetwork was the top result for the censorship message. Would results show up if my scroll was registered with the Vale CCT Tower instead of with Mistral? Maybe it’s a splinter group. Or maybe it IS Mistral. Maybe that’s the reason they came here instead of Vale._

A rockslide commenced, knocking into her forehead.

_And that’s how they have the backdoor!_ she mentally gasped, thrown back in her chair. _They must have acquired the passwords from Mistral itself, or Haven at the very least! Who could have swindled this, Professor Lionheart? Does the Council know? That’s why they’re using real names and no disguises -- they didn’t have to fake an identity at all to get in! But--_

_Why would Mistral work to destroy Vale?_

_Why would anyone listen to_ Cinder, _of all people?_

_Why would the leader of an international conspiracy bring herself on the mission?_

A few pebbles clattered.

_So Cinder can’t be the leader, can she?_

_There’s a higher mastermind._

The landslide settled. 

_The Black Queen._

She breathed.

_...Fuck._

Her thoughts scrambled for air. This wasn’t right. None of it. She was just jumping to conclusions. She was prone to doing that, Adam always said--

But what if she _was_ right?

The whisper niggled at the back of her mind. A temptation.

_Wouldn’t that be grand?_ it beckoned. _Mistral and the White Fang bringing Vale to its knees together?_

She saw it before her eyes. Not just the White Fang, but a whole legion of Huntsmen, of airships and flags with that blue crest emblazoned on the center, marching on Vale as it burned.

_Mistral and the Faunus, arm in arm, destroying humanity._

_A new Great War._

She shut her eyes.

_Impossible._

They opened.

Her arms, her hands with her scroll, the jacket, the table. The quiet chatter of students. Warm overhead light. Complete stillness, peace, and right in the world.

She started breathing again. It was so much less noisy outside of her head. The heat of fixation had lifted from her shoulders, her neck, her chest, and she was calm again.

She regained sensation in her hands and felt the smooth screen of her scroll. 

She swiped. She scrolled. She paused, then wrote.

_Salem: unknown._

She groaned a breathy laugh. All that, and no progress.

But.

Her thumbs descended back onto the keyboard.

_Mistral may be compromised._

And that’s all she got.

_Gods._ What a wild night. She almost felt like quitting right there. Not going and doing something else, just… getting up and walking around, with her hands on her hips, looking up at the night sky. She could go take a shower, a nice, long, hot one, and let her thoughts flow off her with the water pouring down her back.

She cracked her neck and sat a little straighter.

That would be nice, but she had more to do.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that she didn’t make much progress. Entering “Story of the Seasons” and “Spring Maiden” brought up very blasé results about the origins of the fairytale and the several adaptations of it that had been made over the years and the classical art inspired by it and even one dive bar on the east side of Mistral by the same name. A 3.5-star rating, free entertainment, and operating hours from midnight to six. It wasn’t useful information, but Blake’s curiosity would always find ways to get the better of her.

The blinking cursor on her empty document mocked her. It was late, she realized. An hour of her Saturday night had blown away like a summer squall, and now she could see her own reflection in the dark windows of the library.

Blake sighed. The fight had left her. She surrendered herself to taking that long, hot shower now. She almost swooned just thinking about it.

But before she rose from the table, before she rewarded herself for finding out absolutely nothing, she had one more thing she needed to do.

One more thing she could try.

She swiped to her messages. Her finger landed on the only conversation she had.

You: hey can you do something for me?

Barely a moment.

illizard: ye whats up?

Blake smiled, rolling her eyes. _So clingy._

She wrote her request, then reread it, and then wrote it again, cramming casual tone into the gaps in its implications. 

She reread it once more, and pursed her lips.

She hit Send.

You: can you plz look up ‘salem’ for me on your scroll n tell me the results? thanks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand with that, NaNoWriMo has come to an end. This was a fun challenge, and I'm really proud of what I've been able to accomplish! Four chapters, nearly 20,000 words, and 60 pages in the manuscript -- it may not be a whole novel, but it's certainly a significant chunk of one. The next chapter's an exceptionally important one, so while it won't be coming next week, I hope to publish it by the end of December. Thanks for bearing with me!


	15. Semblance

Yang was going to fucking throw up.

She was _so_ light-headed. Sweating buckets. There was a permanent soreness under her solar plexus like she was in the middle of getting kicked in the stomach. Never had she ever felt so acutely terrible, and if it got any worse, she was at high risk of straight-up collapsing off the bleachers right in the middle of Dusk and Sun’s presentation.

The more distressing fact of the matter was that there was nothing wrong with her, physically. Yang was fully, uncomfortably aware that the symptoms that currently afflicted her were merely those of common anxiety, though severe in this particular case. If she were back at home, by now someone would have offered her the best medicine: a hard slap. “Quit worrying, you’ll attract Grimm,” they’d say, to cool her stinging face. That’d knock the nerves right out of her. Then again, back home, she’d have no reason to worry in the first place. There was certainly no concept of “stage fright” back in the tribe, so fondly free of judgement as it was. 

This worry, though, this all-consuming _dread,_ was of a different nature.

This was such a bad idea. Why had she decided to do this? It would spare her the agony of this waiting around if she changed her mind -- if she decided to get out on the floor with Neo in front of all her classmates and just _lie her ass off._ Literally, chuck any notions that she was the Spring Maiden out the window. _Hi, my name’s Yang Branwen, my Semblance is some bullshit about channeling energy into heat -- technically wouldn’t be wrong! -- and, watch this, I can make lightning. Happy? Great, Neo, it’s your turn, let’s fight!_

Yet here she sat, lungs spasming inside her ribcage and Weiss’s eyes slathering concern over her face from across the room. The distant echo of Dusk’s monotone speech waded through the rhythmic thrumming in Yang’s ears, mumbling something about how she hadn’t discovered her Semblance yet. Damn it, why hadn’t Yang just said that before? _Very lucky that lightning bolt out of a clear sky struck that Grimm in my entrance exam! Shall we move on?_

No, no, it was far too late to walk that back. Just thinking about it made the muscles in her jaw strain against her temples. Lying, deceit, treachery -- her people were too noble amongst themselves and too conniving amongst others for her to sell that. Today, in this combat class, she had to come clean: reveal the full extent of her power, write it off as her “Semblance,” and just let herself be the Spring Maiden in all but name.

It would be so freeing. Flames in her eyes, wind in her hair, magic in her heart. She’d finally put the pretending that _lightning_ was the best she could do behind her. With a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Semblance like hers _actually_ was, what was to stop her from letting the forces of nature be her flashy, admirable, formidable “Semblance” in its place?

_Death._

The pressure in Yang’s chest sank so hard, her heart stopped.

Her mother glared at her from behind her own eyes.

_Someone is looking for you._ The thought swept over Yang’s mind like her shadow circling overhead. _If they’re here, if they see, you could be dead by tomorrow._

Her palms slid against each other, slick and burning.

_They would have struck by now,_ she thought, fighting back. _Why go through all the trouble of following me here if they haven’t done it yet?_ _  
_ _They’re waiting,_ it whispered.

_For what?_

_For this._

Dusk and Sun had begun their weapons demonstration, the barrage of clanging and gunshots rattling her skull.

_Reveal yourself, and you will die,_ her mother’s voice stated simply. _No more to it._

_Yes, there is!_ A prickly feeling rose at the top of Yang’s spine, and her hands squeezed into fists. _I’m safe here. The professors keep me safe. My friends keep me safe._ I _keep me safe!_

_It’s an illusion,_ she taunted. _Just because the academies have higher security does not mean they_ care _about you._

_Hm._ The weight under Yang’s ribs lifted, slightly. _No comeback for me or my friends, I see._

The voice in her head rumbled. _Your friends can betray you. You are too weak to--_

_I’m the Spring Maiden._

Dusk and Sun had stopped exchanging blows.

Yang raised her eyebrows at no one.

_Well?_

She breathed in. Professor Jade spoke, and yet to Yang, the world moved in silence.

She breathed out, and everything in her body settled back into place.

Yang was feeling much, much better.

_Today,_ she told herself, _I will become the Spring Maiden again._

Weiss had been waiting her entire morning for this.

She’d barely broken a sweat when she flexed her way through her presentation with Neptune. Admittedly, the combat demonstration had been a little more challenging than expected, but explaining her weapon and Semblance in lustrous detail before immaculately destroying him in her first-ever sparring match at Haven was well worth the effort. Weiss had no doubts that she would get a perfect grade on this assignment. 

Nevertheless, she would have to put that sense of accomplishment aside. Her own performance shouldn’t matter to her. Winter was only interested in two presentations today, and Weiss knew that her own amateur exhibition was not one of them.

She wished, though, that the ones that did matter were less… well, amateur.

“Um, so… this is Parallax,” Crimson muttered, holding up her gun.

“Speak up,” Cinder commanded.

_I heard her just fine,_ Weiss thought.

Crimson swallowed at her partner’s interjection, then barked, “and it’s a long-range high-impact sniper rifle!”

Cinder shot her a glare, before her gaze dulled and returned to blithely inspecting her nails.

“It carries a maximum of ten rounds, eight millimeter calibre,” she explained, voice rising in choppy waves. She flipped it over in her hands. “When fully loaded with Penumbra in its docked position, it weighs about fifteen pounds, a little lighter if equipped with Dust.” 

Then, eyes flashing, she added, “Oh! And Penumbra…”

She unhooked the thin, shallowly-curved blade from its bayonet position under the barrel of the rifle.

She balanced it on her fingers. “Just a very simple curved blade, lightweight steel, I usually wield it reverse grip ‘cause of the angle I usually attack from…”

She trailed off, and stared blankly at her classmates.

“So, yeah.”

Weiss rolled her eyes. It seemed no one on her team but herself had public speaking skills.

Well, the jury was still out on Yang, she supposed. She had yet to present with... oh, now she felt _really_ bad for not remembering her name. Either way, there was more important knowledge to be gained from that highly-anticipated presentation than whatsherface’s name and whether or not Yang had good stage presence -- knowledge Weiss had been burning to learn.

Yet Crimson, puzzlingly enough, had usurped Yang as a top priority. The General was willing to pull strings in order to admit Weiss to Haven Academy for the express purpose of spying on Yang, yet _Crimson_ was suddenly her target of interest? This little imp from Nowhere, Middle Of that Weiss met completely by chance _just so happens_ to merit the same level of attention from the Atlesian military?

Unless, of course, their meeting was not by coincidence.

The thought had crossed Weiss’s mind. Only once or twice, but it had. Weiss chose not to believe in destiny if it resulted in coincidences as inconvenient as this, so there had to be an explanation for why Crimson and Weiss converged just so. Why _had_ Crimson been waiting in Yang’s seat? Surely not for the same reason Weiss had been doing the same. 

Surely not…

“Anyways, my Semblance!” Crimson declared. Weiss’s mind exited onto the platform of that train of thought and she sat up.

“Uh, talking about my Semblance…” Crimson stalled as she grappled with Penumbra in an attempt to hook her weapon back to her belt. “I don’t really have a name for it? Um…”

With a mechanical click, she released Parallax and let it swing to a halt behind her. 

“Uh-- yeah, so my Semblance is pretty much just, like, a speed thing? It… uh, okay, if I use it longer it takes up more Aura, I think I wrote it down somewhere…”

She fumbled for her Scroll for a long, awkward couple of seconds, before chuckling nervously and looked back at the crowd. 

“Whatever,” she said, voice giddy with nervousness. Weiss sighed and looked at the ceiling.

“I think it’s something like three percent in short bursts, ten percent in long bursts, and -- you know what, I think I’ll just show it,” Crimson stammered. 

Weiss’s attention reluctantly swung back to Crimson.

“Cinder?”

Cinder turned her head, eyebrows raised.

Crimson pointed at a spot on the floor. “Could you stand here? I’m gonna show them my Semblance.”

Cinder hummed noncommittally and slid a step to the directed spot, her foot dragging itself into place behind her. Her eyes returned to her nails.

_Oh,_ Weiss cringed, _this is going to go_ so _poorly._

Crimson unhooked Parallax once again, taking a few steps back. Her eyes darted between Cinder and Professor Jade, who stood silently off to the side. Crimson’s brows furrowed.

“Put your Aura up,” she nagged, “you’re gonna be my target.”

Cinder glanced at Crimson, then heaved a sigh as a web of amber light flashed across her skin.

Weiss frowned. _The least you could do is pay attention,_ she scolded. _Your friend is trying hard._ She suppressed her scoff, if only to be polite. _I could do so much better than this._

Weiss blinked at her own conscience. Her, siding with Crimson? A week ago, she thought she’d never see the day.

_Only because her friend’s not good enough,_ she reasoned. _How are they friends, anyways?_ She regarded Cinder’s neverending perusal of her fingernails. _She doesn’t even seem to be_ pretending _to care._

“Alright,” Crimson said. She adjusted Parallax in her arms, lifting it to her shoulder. “This is how I use my Semblance in combat. I guess it also kinda counts as my combat demonstration? Anyways--”

A _whoosh,_ a flash of red, Weiss’s eyes caught on the trail of -- what are those, leaves? -- and the _BANG_ as Crimson, midair, in the blinding light of the ceiling lamps fired straight down towards Cinder--

\--who reached up with a flash of flame and _where did she get those swords from?_ The sudden brittle _CRACK_ resounded, Crimson’s blade of metal meeting Cinder’s blade of sorcery, seeming to splinter and melt and reform as Weiss blinked and missed Crimson reappearing on the other side of the room with more -- petals? -- fluttering to the ground as Cinder spun around to sprint towards her--

“That’s enough.” 

Golden rings glittered around Crimson and Cinder’s heads, and the two collapsed.

There was silence. Crimson and Cinder heaved silently on the ground. 

Weiss’s eyes burned from exposure, and she quit staring, blinking furiously. She closed her mouth.

_Well._

_There might be some worth to Winter’s inquiry after all._

The rings released and Crimson scrambled to her feet, hiding her weapon behind her. Cinder remained on the floor, kneeling, head bowed. She breathed hard, Weiss noted, despite Professor Jade’s Semblance having dissipated.

“Apologies for interrupting you prematurely,” Jade said, “but a demonstration would only be appropriate when both parties have spoken their piece, yes?”

Crimson nodded, looking down. “Right. Sorry.”

“Not to worry,” Jade reassured her. “Now, Cinder?”

Cinder’s head jerked in Jade’s direction, but she did not look up. Her heavy panting abruptly subsided.

“Your turn to describe your weapon and Semblance,” Jade requested. She gestured with a nod. “Please.”

Cinder’s head rose, but the rest of her did not. She looked over at Jade.

_Oh._

Weiss recognized that face, and a few things flew into place all at once.

_Oh, no no no no no._

Cinder cowered. Like a dog. Like a hostess being mocked by a patron, like a child being threatened by a guardian, like anyone in Weiss’s house whose name begins with W being placed at her father’s side during Company events. Cinder cowered in fear, barely restrained, yet so thoroughly and completely disguised from all benign gazes save for the ones who _know._ Cinder looked at Professor Jade with a new sheet of glass behind her eyes, like experiencing the woman’s Semblance meant she was truly seeing her for the first time. Like it wasn’t Professor Jade, but someone and somewhere else entirely.

_Who hurt you?_ Weiss thought, bleeding with empathy.

Cinder, cowering, said, “I... just showed you.”

Slowly. Plotting her steps.

“Well, per the rubric, you’re going to have to provide a more thorough explanation,” Jade replied. Her eyes narrowed, with a displeasure and scrutiny that was undoubtedly intended differently from how it was interpreted, yet still made Weiss flinch on Cinder’s behalf. “If you are not fully prepared to present, then you and Crimson may take your seats and see me after class.”

Were the room less silent, Weiss would have gasped.

Cinder’s eyes darted to Crimson. Crimson returned the look, paralyzed with mortification. Weiss tried to avert her gaze, unable to stand the self-recognition of it all, but her eyes were drawn back to Cinder as the swords in her hands disintegrated in a flash of heat.

Silently, Cinder rose to her feet, cocked her head towards the bleachers, and cleared the floor with Crimson in tow.

Needless to say, this is not how Weiss thought this was going to go.

If she had been less perceptive, she probably would have chided Crimson after class for not preparing well enough for the presentation, for not compensating for her partner’s apparent aversion to participating, maybe even for not coming to her team leader for guidance. But she couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t Crimson or Cinder’s fault. Somehow, to Weiss, it was easier to shirk the blame for this incident onto her own teammate -- her own responsibility -- than to see them slinking off the stage and feel anything but the silhouette of shame and remorse creep in from the recesses of her memories.

“Let’s move on,” Jade’s voice announced. “Next up, we have…”

Weiss shook herself back into the present. It didn’t matter either way. 

No, listen: _it doesn’t matter either way._

She dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. 

Winter wouldn’t care about a report full of frivolous commentary on Crimson’s friendships, so neither should Weiss. If Crimson had put together a more coherent presentation _(perhaps by following the rubric,_ a more pretentious part of her mind grumbled), Weiss would have had an easier time drafting a report on the relevant segments of that display, but what’s done is done. She’d worry about the finer details later.

Besides, there was still one more presentation she was dying to see.

_Ugh, I already know this._

Of course Neo would go first -- or, well, Yang would do the speaking for Neo’s half of the presentation first. Apparently, Professor Jade delivering some kind of cosmic just desserts upon Cinder for not preparing her fair share of the presentation and humiliating both of them in front of the entire class wasn’t enough -- now Crimson was condemned to suffer the boredom and impatience of hearing regurgitated half-truths about her colleague-in-crime whilst rubbing her eye right out of its socket. Crimson would admit that the other presentations had been a bit interesting, maybe a little more than she had expected, but that’s just because they were _novel_ displays of talent and skill. In Crimson’s book, if you’ve heard Neo say nothing once, you’ve heard it a million times. Yang was just standing there, blabbing on and on about Aura drainage and weapon conductivity and _oh boy, now she’s talking about Hush, how fantastically boring_ while Crimson was on the edge of her seat, pining after even the tiniest glimpse of Yang Branwen’s “Semblance.” 

Because, like, she had to show it today, right? And explain it? Or something. Crimson was starting to wonder if she should have read the rubric.

At that, she glanced to her left towards Cinder, who brooded at the end of the row. Unenthusiastically admiring her nails could only vainly attempt to conceal how she radiated cynicism and negativity; Crimson could practically see it, like a cartoon thundercloud hovering over her head. Moreover, she was plagued with visions of the vitriolic accusations that Cinder would without a doubt hurl at her as soon as they left their meeting with Professor Jade. Hopefully, the contents of Yang’s presentation would provide an appropriate distraction to that inevitable argument. 

“So, moving on to my Semblance,” Yang was saying.

_Speaking of which!_ When had she started talking about herself? Crimson catapulted to the front of her seat, mashing her handkerchief against her eye to clear her view. Neo stood off to the side, deferring the attention to Yang, who had taken a position dab smack front-and-center.

_Well, that definitely doesn’t_ look _like she’s hiding anything..._

“I won’t be demonstrating my Semblance in combat with Neo,” Yang announced. “It’s a little too destructive for use on anything but Grimm, so I’ll do an individual demonstration. Well, before our joint combat demonstration.”

Yang’s red eyes flicked over to Professor Jade, who nodded.

It was fascinating. Crimson almost envied how well Yang usually carried herself, how confidently she spoke. A byproduct of being born into leadership, she supposed. She expected to see her standing stoically before her peers without so much as a syllable stuttered.

And while it appeared that way on the surface, Crimson’s eyes were too keen for such deception.

It was the motion that she caught first. A slight tremor in her fingertips, the invisible rise in her throat as she swallowed a breath. Then, she noticed the color: the rosiness in her face and the paleness in her knuckles. And if Crimson listened very carefully, she was sure she could hear the way her heart hammered in her chest, the sound floating off her into the air like steam. Yang was suffocating, almost choking on each labored breath as she fought to repress any expression of the veil of trepidation that had descended over her.

Yang was afraid, and Crimson could smell it. 

That was new.

She kind of liked it.

Yang took a deep, steadying breath. Crimson felt herself leaning in.

Her senses were flooded with a tide of déjà vu. Leaning in, peering down to observe Yang, searching the golden-haired one for signs of her prize. Salem to her left rather than Cinder, the seer throbbing rather than the left side of her face. That day in Evernight had been barely a month before she’d gotten here, yet it felt so much longer ago. So much had happened since this _thing_ had been planted into her face. It had already been away from home too long.

But it was all leading to this. The confirmation. Everything going forward -- the assassination, the plan, the attack -- depended on what happened next. And there was a chance (a small chance, a slim chance, a _chance)_ that, if the next few minutes played out a certain way…

She’d be able to go home.

She wouldn’t mind, if that were the case.

Yang stood in the middle. In the _way._

Crimson leaned in.

_Moment of truth._

Yang opened her mouth.

“My Semblance is the ability to summon and control the forces of nature.”

Crimson stared.

“Cover your ears.”

Crimson stared. The crowd rustled.

The thunderclap was so loud and the lightning bolt was so bright it made Crimson jerk back and slam into the row shuddering behind her. A wave of shrieks rippled through the crowd of students as Crimson scrambled back into her seat, eyes peeled, searching, frantic, _where is it where is it where is it--_

She saw fire.

Red flames. For red eyes. Streaming off her face like wings.

Yang was smiling. 

And then fire curled up her fists, and she held her arms out before her, coaxing the flames to swirl around her arms like burning snakes. The crowd gasped in delight and wonder as the flames went out, and the eyes flared, and the hair went up as a furious gale ripped through the room, an invisible storm tearing through the air, sending pencils and jackets flying over the stunned audience. And the wind came to rest over enamored giggles as specks, flecks, small crystals of white chilled the room, snowflakes settling in the hair of marvelling peers and twinkling eyes, making Crimson finally, finally understand what she was seeing.

Stalagmites of ice shot up from the ground around Yang, smiling, free of the fear that once strangled her in its grasp. She reached down to touch them with a tenderness that only made her smile grow -- and so grew the red, sparkling flames weeping from her eyes.

The ice melted, the snow stopped, the enchanted whispers of the crowd grew quiet. Yang closed her eyes, and the magic went out.

If she started speaking after that, Crimson didn’t hear it. She might have spoken about other aspects to her “Semblance,” other applications for her “Semblance,” other drawbacks of her “Semblance,” but none of it reached Crimson’s ears.

Crimson head turned, numbly, to her left, and found Cinder staring back.

_Welp,_ she gulped.

_She’s the Spring Maiden, all right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, planning this chapter pre-8x06: Just Jade using her glowing-golden-ring-causes-pain-around-head Semblance, no big deal :)  
> Me, actually writing this chapter post-8x06: OH GOD OH FUCK CINDER I'M SORRY
> 
> Merry Christmas, to those of you that celebrate! 
> 
> I plan on releasing Chapter 16 (and maybe 17? <.<) before RWBY returns from its midseason hiatus in February! See y'all in 2021 :D


	16. Favor

Crimson was trying to smile.

When she planned assassinations, she’d usually be beaming like the sun in no time. It was probably a mannerism she’d picked up from Tyrian, like most of her “improper” behavior. But why shouldn’t she? An assassination mission was practically a vacation. Typically, she’d prod Cinder to fly her out in one of the airships, stakeout on the roof of some highrise in Mantle or temple in Anima, and watch the world turn under the stars through the scope of her rifle. It was nice, the watching. Everywhere she went had orange windows, rain-glowing pavement, and best of all, people: laughing, eating, getting from place to place, getting shot in the head. 

Sometimes she’d slip down from her nest to join them -- don a whispered name, walk under the streetlamps, and buy what she liked, or what she thought someone else might. She bought a bracelet for Emerald, once, when they first met. Mercury liked comic books. Sometimes Cinder would task her with finding bits and bobs of jewelry or glamoriser. She didn’t see Tyrian or Hazel often enough anymore to give them anything, and she hasn’t known Neo long enough to know what she likes, but the little brass gyroscope Crimson had bought in Vale lives on Watts’ desk.

The one person to whom she’d never gifted anything was, of course, the Queen. Admittedly, she’d never quite worked up the courage, because what could gods possibly favor? 

(But between the two of us, the woman who’d cradled her liked the smell of bitter teas and real wax candles, and those were kept in a full chest under Crimson’s bed back home.)

Though seemingly oxymoronic, Crimson associated her assassinations with good times. Of course, all good things must come to an end. For Crimson, it usually ended with a bullet -- two if she was indulging herself. Why not smile while she could? It was only fun _because_ she knew she’d go home.

And this trip had been her favorite yet! In the past three years of Salem finally giving her missions abroad, she’d never been out so long, living so much. At Haven, she didn’t need to skitter through shadows with her hood up -- she got to wear her own name, eat at a table, and meet familiar and friendly eyes wherever she looked. There was no need for loving trinkets when she herself received them: handkerchiefs and Never Have I Ever and buttoned shirt cuffs and a team called Wicked. Not to mention the awesome magic powers she knew she’d be getting out of it.

There was so much to smile about. The magic alone would make Cinder cackle.

So why was Crimson struggling to smile? 

If it helped, which it didn't, Cinder certainly wasn’t struggling to frown.

It was only the two of them in CMNE’s dorm room. The door was shut and locked. Cinder stood leaning against the wall, her arms crossed and her frown cemented. She hadn’t been like this with Professor Jade. Her sulking had now turned sinister, something darker than morose. Crimson sat on the floor, watching how her index finger methodically tapped her bicep, to avoid watching her eyes glowering something fierce. At her, or at their recent conversation with the professor, Crimson wasn’t sure. It was probably both.

That wasn’t encouraging her to smile, either.

“Cinder,” Crimson spoke carefully, “I feel like you’re mad at me.”

Digits stilled, chins lowered, eyes narrowed. Cinder replied, “All I’m concerned with is your plans for the assassination.”

Crimson’s shoulders rose. _You could’ve just said “yes.”_

She swallowed, forcing her shoulders back down. “Okay…”

Needless to say, her smile did not materialize. 

There was a burning sensation in Crimson’s face, behind the bridge of her nose. It was something more scalding than embarrassment, but less urgent than tears. Like simmering water. The skin under her eyepatch wriggled, as did she.

She reached reflexively for her handkerchief. The silence was bringing the heat to a hesitant boil, or maybe Cinder’s gaze was to blame. Crimson vainly dabbed her dry eye, and felt the warmth rise.

She bit down on her frustration. There was no point in sweating out the silence. She had a plan all whipped up, ready to present -- there were only a couple tense glares in the way of her saying it. 

And pointed fingers.

And fed-up sighs.

And if Cinder wasn’t going to do a _school assignment,_ then surely she’d take an _assassination_ more seriously, right?

She was going to get yelled at either way.

The burning flared, and the words began to pour out.

“So… like, I need to use my eye to ensure the transfer, right? And, I was thinking the cleanest way to frame it would be as a Grimm attack, which gives me an alibi ‘cause I have my, like, _condition,_ I guess. I looked in the syllabus for our classes, and we have a field trip to Lake Matsu for Grimm Studies in five weeks, so I was thinking--”

“No.”

The rest of her breath left with a sigh. She met Cinder’s eyes.

The burning flickered. Against her better judgement, she replied, “What, think you’ve killed more Maidens than me?”

Crimson decided then that a picture of Cinder should accompany the dictionary entry for “glaring daggers,” and bit her tongue.

“Five weeks is too late,” Cinder dismissed. “I want it done as soon as possible.”

“What?” Crimson balked. “How come?”

Crimson may be slow on the uptake with others, but she knew how to spot Cinder’s rare falters faster than anyone. Betrayed by a glazing shift in her eyes, Cinder’s mouth caught up and said, “Five weeks gives her time to learn your fighting style. If the confrontation were to escalate, you would be at a disadvantage.”

Crimson tossed her head. “Well, then I won’t use my assassination tactics in training. C’mon, what’s the real reason?”

Cinder stood off the wall suddenly, and the shiver it sent up Crimson’s spine whipped her head back into place.

“She already knows your assassination tactics,” Cinder snapped. “She saw them this morning.”

Crimson blinked. _The presentation? Oh, that’s right, for the demonstration._

“Well, I guess, but she--”

“You’ve had no secrecy, no tact!” Cinder’s voice projected outward in harsh bites, and Crimson jerked back. “You showed her, _everyone,_ exactly what they need to know to defeat you.”

“Well, yeah, that was the assignment!” Crimson objected.

Cinder’s fists flew to her sides. “I don’t care about the assignment, you fool!”

Crimson almost wanted to laugh, at the petty insult and everything beyond it. “Yeah, obviously.” She crossed her arms. “Some presentation you gave, earning yourself a remedial essay.”

Cinder growled. “I don’t care about that, either.”

Whereas before the burning had only broiled behind her eyes, it now reached down Crimson’s throat and made her stomach tighten. “I figured you didn’t!” she responded, compelled to standing. “Talking about _me_ having no secrecy or tact? _You’ve_ barely even tried to _pretend_ to be a student here -- not paying attention in class, not doing any of the work, not interacting with any of the other students--”

“I’ve interacted--”

“And what do you get for it?” A flare blazed through her lungs. “Not the ‘fall of humanity’ or the ‘power of the Spring Maiden’ or whatever,” Crimson jeered, waving around air-quotes with singsong bitterness. _“Nooo,_ YOU just get five hundred words on why you want to be a Huntress that you’ll probably make me do _for_ you again!”

“Listen, _brat,”_ Cinder spat, fists literally beginning to fume by her sides, “I don’t answer to _anyone_ \-- not that professor, not this school, not this Kingdom, ANYONE! I’ve been going after what _I want,_ while you’ve just been living in your little daydream world of ‘friends’ and ‘assignments’ and expecting to be rewarded for it!”

The burning shot straight to the brink of extinguishing, in her fists and her chest and her jaw and eye and head -- a flame nearly smothered in its own rage. Rage, yes, that’s what it was! Crimson trembled with this unforeseen, barely-contained wealth of rage, more tumultuous than the blood roaring in her ears. This rage engulfed her in its protective warmth, its ferocious shield that wouldn’t let Cinder poison the fun she’d had, not after already stealing her smile. The burning behind her eye demanded it, that fiercely protective rage -- no, SHE coveted it, herself, her infernal eye; she wanted the magic and the power and she didn’t want her to have it and she wanted Cinder to burn and so the burning rose into her mouth and she said, “You don’t answer to anyone? Tell that to Salem!” 

Cinder seethed, plumes of grey bursting from her clenched hands, and she shrieked through Crimson’s rage, “Well you answer to _me,_ even if she’s always favored you!”

The burning died on Crimson’s tongue.

It echoed back to Cinder a moment later, and her eyes widened into mirrors.

Her eyepatch was skewed.

“That’s not true.”

It was said before Crimson even knew she was thinking it.

Now she was looking at the floor. The burning had drowned in the quiet. Their words hung in the thick air, suspended by amber silence. The way they once burned now felt as shamefully incomplete in Crimson’s mouth as a single bite of a rotten apple. The residual heat rose like steam, forcing its way up her throat, compelling her to continue through the dense stillness.

“I don’t know if you’ve realized, but this is the first time I’ve ever lived away from home.” 

Each word that left her mouth raised the fear of Cinder cutting through before her chance at the next. It was a miracle that she did not.

“Salem treats the two of us in different ways. I’m usually… stuck, at her side.” Her left eye flinched.

“But you…”

Crimson gulped as the ground finally blurred.

“You can do whatever you want. _Go_ wherever you want. Tell me what to do, boss me around, make me just as stuck here as I am with Salem.”

A silvery tear dropped to the floor as Crimson’s eyes raised to meet Cinder’s. They were somewhere else, staring into sometime far away.

“But you’re not Salem,” Crimson, resentful, hissed. “As much as you wanna pretend you are.”

Silence fell like curtains of rain. It seeped into Crimson’s thoughts. Her mind made no further comment, only letting questions pitter-patter in the silence, leaks to be caught in buckets that will never be emptied out. Had she always wanted to say that? Since when had she known it was true?

Her hand came up to fix her eyepatch.

Since Haven, she knew. Since Wicked.

And Cinder knew it too.

The smell of smoke pierced through the deluge, and Crimson’s eyes refocused. The instinctive alarm in her body relaxed. Nothing dangerous, just harmless wisps rising from Cinder’s fists.

Well, that _could_ be dangerous, she supposed.

Especially when the fists weren’t releasing.

It had only been a short eternity, but Cinder’s voice finally returned.

“You don’t want me to tell you what to do?”

It couldn’t be mistaken for a question, but lacked the malice of irony. It still stole Crimson’s breath.

Their eyes met, at long last.

“Fine. Do it without me, then.”

Crimson’s hopes and fears twisted alike. 

“What?”

“Do it on your own,” Cinder reiterated, her usual fierceness creeping back into her voice. “Salem thinks you’re more worthy of the power of the Spring Maiden than I am. So prove it.”

There was a pause.

No, more than that.

The end of a statement.

The floodgates opened, a great thrumming of emotion coursing through Crimson, saturated with relief and dread too copious and contradictory to experience at once. Something she didn’t even know she wanted now sat in her hands. It was euphoria, and terror. A coolness washed over her in kind, a blessed chill so unlike the burning that had consumed her from within. 

And the chill deepened as Cinder leaned in to add, “And once you’ve done it, you’re going home.”

“Is it possible that this is because you’ve fallen out of Cinder’s favor?”

Crimson’s face scrunched up and she squeaked “Nooo,” which Blake knew obviously meant “yes.”

She had expected about as much when Crimson had burst into their dorm to interrupt Blake’s study time. There was no reason Crimson would come to her one-on-one for Team Red-related activities unless Cinder had exited the picture. Blake assumed that the rift had been caused by the awkward disaster that had been their presentation this morning, although she was willing to put money on Cinder’s poorly-guised stress flashback being an underlying factor. Blake couldn’t help but wonder if she was okay.

Anyways, her point being: Crimson bringing her plans to Blake was almost certainly an indication of a long-foreseen weakening of her relationship with Cinder. And that weakness was exploitable.

“It’s fine if it is,” Blake said, baiting her with reassurance. “I’m here to be ordered around, after all.”

“No, seriously, it’s not like that,” Crimson insisted. “I wouldn’t want to boss you around like--” she looked askance “--uh, Cinder would. This is more just, like, me asking for a favor, is all.”

Blake watched her face, and the eye that refused to watch her back. It was sweet, honestly, that Crimson would turn to Blake when finding herself with a sudden lack of support. Even if Blake’s immediate reflex was to exploit that trust for information, she couldn’t help but feel something for a human’s naïve faith.

Still, she could exploit it a _little._

“If it’s a favor, you know you’ll owe me one, right?”

Crimson chuckled. “Yeah, sure, whatever you want. I’m not asking much, just for you to occupy Weiss on that field trip. And,” she added with a stern look, “to ask no questions.”

Her fondness vanished.

_Well, that’s going to be a problem._

This endeavor was in pursuit of answers, after all. Her mind was starved for them, as it had been for quite some time. Upon other preexisting questions -- “who is Salem?” -- formed others -- “why is ‘Salem’ an internationally censored term?” as she’d discovered with Ilia’s help -- accumulating like stalagmites. And that was _before_ just now, when Crimson had dropped on her plate that she was planning to do “something” (question-marks abound) on their field trip that probably involved Yang and an alibi if Blake was indeed to distract Weiss to ensure its success. Answers were needed like rain in a drought, and not being allowed to ask questions was the world’s largest umbrella.

Fortunately, it wasn’t like Blake had never been in a situation where she wasn’t allowed to ask questions. If anything, it was a sort of unspoken rule about her and Adam’s relationship, but that’s neither here nor there. Blake had her ways to get answers out of people, and already knew Crimson was likely the easiest egg to crack.

But where to start?

That weakness would do nicely.

Blake summoned her best impression of ignorance. “Why not?” she asked with an innocent tilt of the head. “Does Cinder not want me to be in-the-know?”

Looking down her golden-eyed scope, aligning the shot into her unstable emotions, loading the bullet labeled “teenage rebellion,” and--

Crimson’s face stumbled. “Um-- well, actually, Cinder’s not in charge of this part of the operation, I am, so…”

_Boom, headshot._

Blake was sort of proud of herself.

Reload. “Alright,” Blake said casually, “so are _you_ gonna let me ask questions, or…?”

Crimson huffed a choppy chuckle. Blake was near certain that meant she had her on the ropes. 

“Well, that depends on what you want to ask me.”

Blake squashed down the thrilled smile threatening to rise to her face. _Direct hit._ Reload.

“I mean, you asked me to help you out, so I just wanna be able to clarify things along the way, if that’s okay.”

Crimson’s face squirmed. In her mind, Blake was crossing her fingers.

Crimson shrugged. “Sure, that’s fine.”

Blake smiled, much less widely than she really wanted to. _Oh, I am too good._

“Okay then,” Blake replied coolly. “Let’s get on the same page.”

Crimson blinked, her eye pinning itself to Blake. “W-- you mean now?”

Blake raised her eyebrows. “Oh, just a few things, it won’t take long.”

Crimson seemed to relax, nodding as she leaned back. “Okay. Alright.” She raised finger-guns and wiggled them. “Hit me,” she said, cringing as she did.

Blake kept her face neutral, but inaudibly exhaled. _Close one. Careful, now. No time to celebrate._

_What first? What’s the least suspicious?_

“So, this... ‘thing’ you’re planning.”

“Yep.”

_Does this have to do with Yang?_

“Will I have to distract Yang, too?”

Crimson opened her mouth, and froze. “Ehhh, no, I’ll take care of that.”

_Does that mean you’re sending someone else to watch her, or will you be_ with _Yang?_

“Can I work with whoever’s doing that? So we can, like, group up with both--”

“No no, sorry, I meant, like, I’m going to be with her,” Crimson clarified.

_Thank you very much._

“Ah, okay.”

_What else would I like to fish for? Oh, definitely--_

“Is there, like, some sort of signal I should be looking for -- maybe a codeword, or something, when the operation starts?”

_Preferably something like “Spring Maiden?” Care to explain what that’s referring to?_

Crimson shook her head. “Once we arrive, you should start keeping Weiss busy, and I’ll pair off with Yang as soon as possible.”

_Pretty please?_ “So, how will I know when the operation is finished?”

Crimson’s eye searched the room for a response. A shadow passed over Crimson’s face as the girl thought.

“You’ll just know,” Crimson said, strangely solemn. “You’re… not supposed to have any part in this, as your alibi, so it’s best that you find out when everybody else does.”

Blake’s ears flicked against her will. “Find out? About what?”

But Crimson shook her head, pressing her lips together and her eyelids shut, as if hiding from the idea. “It’s fine,” she said, “it’s fine, you’ll see.”

Intrigue became alarm. Blake had just struck ground on something she wasn’t supposed to know, something that only stoked her intense curiosity. 

“Will you at least tell me afterwards?” Blake asked. She prodded at Crimson’s sympathy -- shimmered her eyes to cover their ravenous inspection of her face, lowered her brows to guise their conviction. “What all of this is about, I mean.”

Alas, Crimson was looking away, wasting the appeal of Blake’s pitiable face. She recognized the look in her eye, though. Her eye was looking for a way to escape the situation, a way to flee, even if her body couldn’t. It drove her curiosity mad.

_What is it that you don’t want me to know?_

“I…”

Crimson steeled herself with a dry sniff and turned back. Blake was struck by the hardness on her face, how quickly her emotions had stiffened. She blew past Blake’s facade and looked her dead in the eye, exactly like Blake had been doing all this time -- exactly like a girl forsaking her humanity.

“No,” she said firmly. It was little more than a whisper. “Because if everything goes according to plan, you’ll never see me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blake: Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.
> 
> This is technically during a hiatus like I promised, right...?
> 
> As usual, people are lying to each other, plotting each other's deaths, and in desperate need of therapy. I am VERY excited for next chapter, so hopefully that will be out next month (one-year anniversary of this fic, wild)!

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by an edit of mine a couple years ago following the same premise. The designs have to be updated, but this is essentially the poster: https://thuskindlyshescatters.tumblr.com/post/175096231848/
> 
> EDIT: And now the designs have been updated! Here is the new poster: https://thuskindlyshescatters.tumblr.com/post/615741226890739712/wycd-au-official-poster  
> Check the WYCD AU tag on my blog at thuskindlyshescatters.tumblr.com for official annotated character design reference sheets!


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